TROUBLE FOR UNIONS
Arkansas Democrats went to the polls on Tuesday, though not necessarily to vote in a primary runoff. What they actually took part in was a referendum. Big Labor lost.
Sen. Blanche Lincoln’s triumph over Bill Halter and his union allies goes well beyond simple primary victory. Mrs. Lincoln won by making Big Labor the issue, by defining it as a proxy for an unpopular Washington—and, by subtle extension, for an unpopular Obama agenda. Thus did the incumbent buck the anti-incumbent tide. There’s a takeaway here for candidates in both parties, one that does not bode well for the union label.
The unions set themselves up for this. They came in force to Arkansas to make an “example” of a senator who had refused to support their agenda, in particular card check and a public health-care option. The race would also send a message to President Obama. The unions, complained AFSCME President Gerald McEntee, had helped the White House elect all “these Blue Dogs,” only to discover “what’s the use of having them there?” From now on, labor would secure its own liberal votes, starting with Mr. Halter.
So determined was the movement to make its Big Stand, it didn’t stop to consider why Mrs. Lincoln had voted against it in the first place. Here’s a hint: Arkansas is a right-to-work state, and only 41,000 of its 1.1 million workers belong to a union. Most voters engaged in this runoff had no union allegiance; if anything, they’d actively declined the union agenda.
Mrs. Lincoln understood that, and it would become her weapon. Prior to the first, May primary vote, she was on defense, parrying Halter-union accusations, taking only occasional shots at Mr. Halter’s “union allies.” But as a runoff became necessary and as activists kept flooding in, Mrs. Lincoln made a sharp shift. If the unions were so eager to have this fight, so be it. It’d be Blanche vs. Big Labor.
These “Washington unions,” steamed the newly energized Senator, are nothing more than “special interests” that “bully Arkansas voters.” These “DC” unions were “hijacking” the election, to discourage members from “crossing them,” read a campaign memo. Want to talk about their agenda? At a rally Mrs. Lincoln noted her opposition to card check. Her refusal to give Big Labor even more power, she explained, was why it was in this race. It is here because “I vote for my constituents.”
Bill Clinton flew in to accuse Mr. Halter of being a tool of “national unions.” “This is about using you and manipulating your votes,” he declared in one ad. The message: The SEIU and the AFL-CIO were Washington, and a vote for Mr. Halter was a vote for the status quo.
Mrs. Lincoln was careful not to criticize the Obama administration, though the beauty of her approach was that she didn’t have to. The “Washington” she complained of is, of course, the president’s. And the “special interest” unions are only powerful because the administration has so shamelessly used its powers to reward them.
With every criticism of “Washington special interests,” Mrs. Lincoln was reminding voters of UAW bailouts, backroom union health-care negotiations, and recess appointments for union activists. She was tapping into the public frustration that, despite all the president’s promises, nothing in Washington has changed.
The unions are now being criticized by Democrats for dumping $10 million into a lost race, but labor’s mistake was more fundamental. The point of this exercise was to warn folks like Nebraska’s Ben Nelson to get with the union program or be run out. The lesson some Democrats (and Republicans) will instead take is that unions, at least in some states, can be successfully portrayed as the ugly face of a broken Washington. They might even serve as a convenient and subtle way to put some distance between a Democratic candidate and his president.
This ought to worry the union leadership. Big Labor realized years ago that—with its membership in decline—its last, best hope was a Democratic majority that would use its power to revive the movement. It went all in the past two elections, yet still came up short on its biggest priorities. Arkansas was supposed to get the politics back on track. Instead, the unions lost, irritated the White House, and exposed a glaring weakness.
As for Mrs. Lincoln, this was a one-trick pony. She won this race by pivoting away from Mr. Halter and toward an opponent that she could portray as more “Washington” than she is. Her Republican challenger, John Boozman, will spend the rest of this race reminding voters that she’s in fact at the center of Washington’s Democratic agenda—a deciding vote for stimulus, for ObamaCare. This is why Mrs. Lincoln already trails Mr. Boozman by 25 points among the wider Arkansas electorate.
Her primary victory was nonetheless an important moment in a Democratic Party that has been living under growing union tyranny. Someone was certainly “made an example of” in Arkansas. It just wasn’t Mrs. Lincoln.
