LABOR LAUNCHES ANTI-McCAIN CAMPAIGN

The cold north winds from Canada and an even colder crowd of Republicans inside didn’t stop more than two dozen unionists from launching labor’s anti-John McCain campaign, in the northern wilds of Exeter, N.H.

The group gathered March 12 near where the Arizona senator, the all-but-officially-crowned GOP presidential nominee, hosted a “town hall” meeting to thank Granite State Republicans for reviving his once-seemingly-dead White House drive.

The unionists’ objective was to tell voters--and indeed the rest of the country--what McCain’s real record is on issues important to workers.

For the New Hampshire group, their focus was on McCain’s votes against legislation that would help workers when plants close--or even require firms to warn them of closures--for so-called “free trade” treaties without worker rights, his comments in Michigan that jobs won’t come back, and his admitted lack of an economic plan.

The New Hampshire unionists, marshaled by the state AFL-CIO, are the van-guard of what will be an intense push by the national AFL-CIO to “define” McCain by his anti-worker votes, before he gets a chance to define himself by his supposed “straight talk,” federation national Political Director Karen Ackerman told reporters that day.

And defining McCain, including a critical website detailing his record, and featuring his smiling photo with that of anti-worker GOP President George W. Bush, is part of the federation’s overall $53.4 million political drive this year, she added. All of that will be for grass-roots organizing and education, with none for radio and TV ads.

“He has not yet talked about a plan to focus on preventing good-paying jobs from leaving this country, or on a plan to rebuild this country,” and the fed is going to hold McCain accountable, Ackerman said. “Everywhere he goes, union members will go to confront him and demand he talk on economic items.”

New Hampshire wasn’t the opening salvo in the “McCain revealed” campaign, including a website by that name. The first shots were fired at rallies in Columbus and Cincinnati before the Ohio primary. And the website features a “briefing book” of the senator’s stands.

Those include his votes for NAFTA, the jobs-destroying U.S.-Mexico-Canada “free trade” pact and for successor, similar treaties with Central American and other nations.

They also include McCain’s votes against raising the minimum wage, his votes against labor rights, and his health care plan, a variation of Bush’s demand to privatize Medicare and to leave everyone at the mercy of the health insurance companies. And they include his support for GOP plans to substitute comp time for overtime, for Bush’s plan to privatize Social Security, and against expanding SCHIP, the joint federal-state children’s health care program. Bush vetoed SCHIP expansion, twice.

McCain’s stands on those issues, especially Social Security, SCHIP and the wage issues, will be pitched to the wider electorate, not just to unionists, Ackerman said. “We’ll be encouraging him to change his position” on those and other economic topics, she pointed out. “But we’ll complete his profile to show his unwavering support of Bush’s economic agenda, so people won’t be fooled.” She called him “Bush term 3.”

The federation will take its “McCain revealed” campaign into at least 23 states, including 17 swing states in the presidential race and six others with hot Senate or gubernatorial races. Key states are Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan and Minnesota. Others include Missouri and Indiana, where governorships are contested, and Kentucky and Alaska, which expect U.S. Senate battles.

The McCain revealed campaign is part of the AFL-CIO’s wider effort to “turn America around,” the theme of its overall Election ’08 drive. That drive also includes voter registration, efforts to prevent voter suppression, and a 4-part platform for changing the economy to help workers.

The four parts are universal affordable health care--type unspecified--good jobs with guaranteed pensions, fair trade and a strong right to organize and bargain. All are interconnected, the AFL-CIO says. “We’ll be targeting union households with a massive effort,” Ackerman adds. Besides the anti-McCain campaign, the overall effort will include a massive get-out-the-vote drive, labor-to-neighbor walks on health care on May 17 in more than 100 cities and a big presence at the Democratic National Convention in Denver. “We haven’t decided yet” on what to do at the GOP convention in the Twin Cities, she said.