THE UNIONS AND THE PEOPLE – AT 8:44 P.M. ET:  One of the most remarkable political developments of our era has been the drifting apart of many labor leaders from their own members. 

Linda Chavez, in the New York Post, does a fine job of analyzing what's happened...a development that has profound implications for elections, national and otherwise:

In a recent Washington Post column, Harold Meyerson quotes a member of Working America, a political group founded in 2004 by the AFL-CIO: "When our canvassers call on our members on their doorsteps, they hear Glenn Beck or Bill O'Reilly in the background." You can bet that drives union leaders crazy, especially since unions now spend a growing share of their members' dues trying to convince them that the likes of Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Barack Obama represent their values and aspirations.

But workers aren't buying it. They've watched as the Democratic troika has shoved unpopular health-care legislation down American throats. They've witnessed unprecedented government spending that promised jobs but delivered nearly 10 percent unemployment. Now they're bracing for tax hikes, which they know will come out of their pockets even if the Democrats promise only "the rich" will pay.

Union households were a decisive factor in President Obama's 2008 election. The president won 53 percent of the popular vote, but that victory came largely because he won such relatively union-heavy states as Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania. But many union members who voted for the president and his Democratic cohorts in Congress won't make the same mistake again.

COMMENT:  I might add that union members are working people.  They and their ancestors built this country.  They're proud of it, and they see a Democratic president practically laughing at them as people who "cling to their guns and their religion."  They see others on the Democratic left oppose any American military action, action in which their sons and daughters gladly participate.  And they see a party run by elites who would never condescend even to speak to them.

And then the Democrats ask them for their vote.  It was a different party in their fathers' day, but this isn't their fathers' day.

But voters -- even union members -- won't be bought this time around. If labor unions ever hope to win the hearts and minds of American workers again, they could start by listening to their members.

Yup.  But they won't.  Too much trouble.

September 5, 2010