2012 & collective bargaining

Over at Daily Kos, Chris Bowers has identified a number of key opportunities for Democrats emerging from the fights taking place in Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana, New Hampshire and beyond over collective bargaining rights.

Force every GOP Presidential candidate to go on record against collective bargaining rights. Finally, holding the election in 2011 can still greatly benefit Democrats in 2012. Since the Ohio referendum will happen in the midst of the Republican Presidential nomination campaign, and since every Republican candidate will want to appeal to the party's hard-right base and elites, every single one of them will go on record opposing collective bargaining rights for public workers. This would not necessarily have been the case in 2012, when the GOP nominee would be able to offer up vague answers on the issue. As such, a 2011 referendum could actually have a bigger impact on 2012 than holding the referendum in 2012, since it will make the stakes in the 2012 election crystal clear to millions of public employees around the country.

This is right. New Hampshire and Ohio are places important to both the GOP primary and the general election; Wisconsin is a state that has recently experienced a Republican surge (though it pretty clearly looks like a fleeting one). While governors in Wisconsin and Ohio have made large, public attacks on unionized public workers, there has been a huge volume of national attention to their actions. Unfortunately for the GOP presidential field, these assaults on workers is costing newly-elected Republicans key support. Police and firefighter unions are moving away from the Republican Party in places where these attacks are under way. These islands of Republican support within the sea of organized labor can be important parts of any candidate's field operation. So the primary field is faced with a tough choice: to stand with extreme anti-labor ideologues in governors' mansions around the country against a public backlash puts what little union support they might win at risk. In case you haven't noticed, cops and firefighters are some of the best political messengers; this is not a risk any Republican presidential candidate should take lightly.

Update (1:43pm, 4/1/11):
Speaking of candidates hating on unions, Michele Bachmann, Paul Ryan, & Mike Pence just voted against stripping union-busting provisions from the FAA reauthorization bill. Read More......

Mike Pence not running for President

Howey Political Report, the very plugged in political tip sheet in Indiana is reporting that Mike Pence is not running for President.

U.S. Rep. Mike Pence has ruled out a run for national office and will tour the state in the next few months, informed and reliable sources tell Howey Politics Indiana. The sources say that Pence has not made a final decision about a run for governor, keeping open the option of running for reelection in the 6th CD. State law prohibits Pence from raising money in a gubernatorial race until the Indiana General Assembly's sine die on April 30. However, Pence gave up the No. 3 position in the Indiana House in November. Developing ....

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No 'new tone' at CPAC

TPM has a story up about a panel on CPAC called "Ground Zero Mosuq: Second Wave of the 9/11 attacks."

At the Conservative Political Action Conference next month -- the one decried as being "infiltrated" by the Muslim Brotherhood by the likes of sharia alarmist Frank Gaffney -- an event will be held titled, "The Ground Zero Mosque: The Second Wave of the 9/11 Attacks."

The event is a movie premiere, hosted by mosque opposition leader Pamela Geller and her partner Robert Spencer. It will be followed by "a question and action and strategy session on how to stop the Islamic supremacist mega-mosque at Ground Zero."

I think we can note that even conservatives think that Pam Geller's brand is a toxic form of bigotry and she's dabbled in birtherism and she spread Malcom X was Obama's father smear. Here's the thing, a series of Republican presidential candidates are about to speak at CPAC. You expect partisanship at events like this but to conflate an Islamic center in Manhattan to a repeat of the 9/11 attacks is not only extreme but offensive. But this is what Haley Barbour, Mitch Daniels, Tim Pawlenty, Mike Pence, Mitt Romney and John Thune have signed up for in February. So much for Republican and the new tone. Read More......