In My Opinion: It’s a High Stakes Election Year for Working Families

Republican strategist and top White House staffer Karl Rove has openly advised his party’s candidates this year to try to make the war on terrorism the central election issue. Rove correctly reasons that the war effort is a great deal more popular than the GOP’s stance on issues that most people care about.

That strategy flows naturally from the way the White House has used the war and the country’s patriotic mood to advance its policy agenda. Suddenly the Bush tax giveaway to corporations and the rich became a “stimulus” package to deal with the post-September 11 blow to the economy and job loss. (But never mind providing health care relief and training to people who lost their jobs.) They even tried to paint the fast track trade issue as a tool for fighting global terror. There have been not so subtle suggestions that critics of administration policies are unpatriotic.

Fortunately, the stench of political cynicism is obvious to most people who, I believe, are a lot smarter than Rove thinks they are. They realize that all of us, including elected officials of both parties, are committed to fighting the war on terror all the way and to doing what it takes to ensure public safety. And they also realize that we have to address vital priorities here at home.

Economists may debate whether or not we have been in a recession, but working families know that we are seeing steady rounds of layoffs, from telecommunications to manufacturing to the public sector, and many airline workers who lost jobs after September 11 are still unemployed.

Meanwhile, the costs of health care coverage and prescription drugs are soaring, employers are shifting more costs to workers, and Medicaid funds are drying up in state after state, threatening coverage for poor families. State budget shortfalls, largely resulting from cutbacks in federal block grants along with the sagging economy, are squeezing our public education system.

Working families also are counting on government leadership to ensure the viability of Social Security and Medicare to make sure that their pension plans and 401(K) plans are protected in the wake of the Enron debacle.

All of these issues make this November’s elections vitally important.

Thirty-six governors’ races are being fought this year, and just about every one of these states is facing a budget crisis. The elections are all about what programs and services will be retained or slashed.

Party control of both houses of Congress is at stake and the outcome will have a tremendous impact on union members and all working families. Only six House seats right now give the edge to the Republican leadership of Dick Armey and Tom DeLay, who are both rabidly anti-union and hostile to workers’ rights and workers’ interests where they clash with those of big business. The Senate is virtually divided, with Democrats barely controlling the agenda by virtue of the Jim Jeffords party switch.

President Bush is dead set on recapturing the Senate this year. It is reported that Bush handpicked the candidate to run against incumbent Democrat Tim Johnson in South Dakota. That’s the home state of Majority Leader Tom Daschle, and GOP attack ads have been tailored to smear Daschle as well. The White House Senate “hit list” also includes some of CWA’s and the AFL-CIO’s staunchest allies — Paul Wellstone of Minnesota, Tom Harkin of Iowa, Max Cleland of Georgia, as well as Jean Carnahan of Missouri.

Bush’s dream of capturing all three branches of government (that includes the Supreme Court, where he may have further appointments) would be our nightmare.

Consider that this is the administration that overturned the workplace ergonomic standard as practically its first order of business. And then it went on to slash funding for safety inspections, funding for worker training and job programs like Head Start. It even named a man who was a corporate lobbyist against worker safety protections as the Labor Department’s top lawyer.

With a White House-controlled Congress, there will be a lot more of the same, as well as a push for Bush’s pet scheme of privatizing Social Security.

But this election year also brings us a great opportunity to elect more minorities and candidates to office who truly reflect the concerns of working families. In Texas, Bush’s own back yard, our efforts can put Ron Kirk into the U.S. Senate — where he will become just the third African-American senator in the post-Civil War period. Kirk has honored CWA by agreeing to appear at our convention in June.

Also in Texas, we can help elect as governor Tony Sanchez, the Hispanic, Democratic candidate who supports quality education and real health care reform.

They call it an “off year” election when the presidency isn’t at stake — but it can’t be an off year for us. We need to mobilize the biggest grassroots political effort in CWA’s history, beginning now. We have a very real chance to elect a pro-worker leadership in both houses of Congress. And by doing that, we can build the momentum to elect a president who cares about the interests of working families in 2004.