  |
 |
| |
|
|
|
 Remembering What Nixon LearnedPosted on Mar 13, 2008By David Sirota A half-century ago, Richard Nixon spearheaded his party’s national congressional campaign in the face of a recession like the one we face today. Then Dwight Eisenhower’s vice president, he decided that as a way to defeat Democrats the GOP would champion anti-worker laws pioneered in the segregationist South. Specifically, he rolled out “right to work” ballot initiatives to weaken the labor movement. These measures ban contracts that compel employees who benefit from union representation to contribute union dues. When the 1958 election came, Nixon’s blame-workers-first initiatives bombed, and Republicans lost 48 congressional seats, handing the party “its worst year ever,” as historian Rick Perlstein recounts in his brilliant new book, “Nixonland.” “Right-to-work wasn’t popular with a general public that understood how a strong labor movement had rocketed millions of voters into the middle class,” Perlstein writes. Fifty years later, conservatives are ignoring history’s teachings and resurrecting Nixon’s failed strategy in a place that could decide a close presidential election. In Colorado, one of the most contested “swing” states, a group of zealots is hoping a “right to work” ballot initiative will drive up GOP turnout and help John McCain keep nine electoral votes in the Republican column. The strategy is bold in its desperation. Right-wingers are betting that Colorado citizens will vote to cut their own pay. After all, according to the Economic Policy Institute, employees in right-to-work states make between 4 and 8 percent less per year than those in other states. Already, a poll shows that 56 percent of Coloradans oppose “right to work” laws. Even one of Colorado’s most influential business groups has said it has “no desire” for such irrational measures. But the right is not in a rational frame of mind. Colorado conservatives are reeling after Republicans lost both the Legislature and governor’s mansion for the first time in more than four decades. The state Republican Party is so unhinged that it hired a buffoon named Dick Wadhams to save it—the same Dick Wadhams who most recently made headlines running Sen. George “Macaca” Allen’s 2006 re-election campaign into the ground, effectively ending the Virginia lawmaker’s political career. Clearly, these are dire times for the right, and despair tends to deify the Nixons and the Wadhamses by embracing irrational extremism—whether YouTube-amplified racism or worker persecution inherent in right-to-work schemes. Adding to conservatives’ troubles is Colorado’s emboldened labor movement. Rather than crouching in a defensive posture, unions are preparing two initiatives that could drive up turnout for Democrats and serve as a model for other states across the nation. One forces the right to defend criminals—literally. The initiative would make a corporate executive personally liable under the law if he or she “engages in, authorizes, solicits, requests, commands or knowingly tolerates the business’s criminal conduct.” According to union polling, 84 percent of Colorado citizens back the measure. Nonetheless, the Denver Chamber of Commerce is trying to keep the initiative off the ballot, claiming that punishing corporate criminals is “a direct assault on our business climate.” Yes, conservatives say lawbreaking is not an “assault on our business climate”—prosecuting lawbreakers is. Next thing you know, these shills will argue that locking up violent criminals hurts the “business climate” because, when not killing people, murderers contribute to the local economy. The other labor-backed initiative would require employers to have a “just cause” when laying off an employee. The unions’ poll shows 70 percent of Colorado voters support the concept—not surprising, considering that many voters are probably shocked to discover that most states allow employers to terminate workers for any reason not already outlawed by existing anti-discrimination statutes. Your boss doesn’t like that you root for a particular professional sports team? Unless the ballot initiative passes, you can be fired “at will” for that and more in Colorado—and the initiative’s conservative opponents will be arguing that’s A-OK by them. Perlstein notes that after Nixon’s anti-labor strategy backfired in 1958, he “hardly said an ill word about the labor movement in public again.” He learned a lesson that today’s conservatives have forgotten—namely, that the public punishes those who overtly denigrate workers. If these initiatives end up on the ballot in a state garnering so much election attention, voters will have the chance to teach the right that crucial lesson once again. David Sirota is a best-selling author whose newest book, “The Uprising,” will be released in June. He is a fellow at the Campaign for America’s Future and a board member of the Progressive States Network, both nonpartisan organizations. His blog is at www.credoaction.com/sirota. © 2008 Creators Syndicate Inc. Previous item: Reagan Democrats Next item: Monster Community Weighs In on Campaign Controversy Elsewhere: . CommentsAre you a Truthdig member yet? Login now, or register with Truthdig.
By Conservative Yankee, March 19 at 7:01 am # I would agree EXCEPT...By J, March 18 at 6:42 pm # Quick p.s. on a company firing an employee. What in the name of many-virgined martyrs gives anyone the impression that a private or public company has to give any reason whatsoever for firing someone? Taxpayers are required to subsidize business when it fails, so they then become “defacto stock holders” (See Bear Stearns, Chrysler, and the entire defense industry. ALSO Companies have shown no respect for their position in their communities. They leave union towns for non-union towns, and then leave the USA for countries with no environmental restrictions. We defend them (with our blood and money) and they return lead laden toys, poison toothpaste, and contaminated fish. They buy and sell politicians like they were used cars, and they pump money into media outlets to distort the true nature of their actions, and the effects of same on our society. Someone should keep an eye on them....if not a tight leash.
By J, March 18 at 6:42 pm # Quick p.s. on a company firing an employee. What in the name of many-virgined martyrs gives anyone the impression that a private or public company has to give any reason whatsoever for firing someone? Has our lot become so pathetic that a million years of human competition needs to end because somebody says so? Hey, maybe you have a right to be King! whiners read:
By Joe, March 18 at 5:24 pm # Village E-- Maybe you’re referring to later elections but Nixon was neutral on right-to-work law in 1958 and opposed to it when running against Kennedy. Nixon was neither a conservative (in the traditional OR neocon sense) nor a right-winger. He was a smart, catty lawyer who looked for the upper hand minus the baggage of ideology. He would have made a poor fascist. If it were not for the monstrous close-influence of Kissinger, I believe Nixon would have gotten us out of Vietnam quickly and quietly, in order to pursue some usable notions on the Presidency and the world. Unburdeoned of Vietnam, he might not have gone off the deep-end with enemies lists and fatal distractions.
By Joe, March 18 at 5:06 pm # Sirota’s last article, the one on NAFTA, was pretty good (except for excusing Democrats on the issue of job loss) but this piece has me puzzled. Both Nixon and Eisenhower, before the 1958 election, considered right-to-work law a matter for the States to sort out as they wished: “In California on September 30, Nixon, following Eisenhower’s lead, would refuse to take a stand on the state’s right-to-work initiative (New York Times, Oct. 1, 1958).” This from the archives of the Eisenhower Presidential Library. <http://www.eisenhowermemorial.org/presidential-papers/s econd-term/documents/870.cfm> It seems Sirota is pulling facts out of his chubby, corn-fed bum.
By Conservative Yankee, March 17 at 2:08 pm # THE DEMOCRATS authored the “yellow Dog” strategy! Nixon wes delighted in ‘68 when Wallace split the Democratic party and took Louisiana,Arkansas, Mississippi, Georgia and Alabama out of the Humphry equation, and Handed the Election to Nixon, at the time a New York Lawyer who couldn’t win in a newly integrated South. In 72 Nixon didn’t need a “strategy” as the Democrats did what they are doing again this year and ran a candidate so flawed that Nixon took every State except Massachusetts. I still have my “Massachusetts the one and only” bumper sticker!
By Conservative Yankee, March 16 at 5:16 am # You continually let the focused turkeys wrestle you to the ground. Waxman did not contribute anything the discussion, so he deserves to be ignored. But you and MCM let yourselves be side-tracked by an obvious troll. Back to the important discussion You also neglected to mention (and I know you would have if you thought of it) That the Clinton’s, both Walmart board member Shill, and Governor Ham-burgler Bill supported “right-to-work” when they were in Arkansas… sort of a pre-NAFTA performance. The Clinton’s are as anti-worker as 58 Nixon, and it is a shame that the unions in Ohio didn’t see through her scam.
By GW=MCHammered, March 14 at 12:43 pm # Voting Doesn't HelpI dream truckers would arm themselves then block all major freeways every mile or so. Supporters cover for them. Keep people from going to work, spending money, burning fuel AND get the government’s attention. No more Pumping-n-Dumping the markets at worker and taxpayer expense. Bring this shit to end here and now. Oh, but I don’t mean here in democratic free market Amurika. No, over there where they don’t have ALL the freedums we have. You know, like France. But it’s just a dream.
By Grousefeather, March 14 at 4:12 am # It seems only right that we should all be in favor of a economic system where just a few people become very wealthy while the rest of us feed off the crumbs left behind. Add Your Comment |
|
Huckabee’s Major Misfire
Email
Print
Share
Del.icio.us
Digg
Facebook
Ma.gnolia
Newsvine
Reddit
StumbleUpon
Yahoo
Jump to Comments
Bazaar|Podcast|About Us|Contact Us|User Agreement|Privacy Policy|Comment Policy
Copyright © 2008 Truthdig, L.L.C. All rights reserved.
COMMENT TOOLS:
Hide comments
Show comments
Comment on this article