Thursday, October 23, 2008
George McGovern on "card check"
John McCain will not make the case against compulsory "card check" unionization, but George McGovern will:
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2 Comments:
By 
, at
Thu Oct 23, 11:06:00 PM:
After McGovern left the Senate, he opened up a bed and breakfast in Connecticut. It proved to be a disaster, from both a taxation and employment law standpoint (I think that McGovern wrote a book about the experience). His basic point: if only he knew how hard it was to run a business when he was in the United States Senate. So convincing were his arguments that when Bill Clinton was elected President, the Wall Street Journal editorialized that Clinton should have named McGovern Secretary of Labor.
McGovern has a lot of credibility here. Arguably he was the most liberal Democratic presidential candidate before Barack Obama, and now he's opposed to this proposed -- and very troubling -- law. Give him credit -- he's standing up for what he believe in and making a convincing case.
We need more "blue dog" Democrats and legislators like him. Wasn't it Sam Rayburn who said not to trust a man who "never wrote a paycheck and made it good." Well, we have plenty of those in the Senate -- prone to tell us how to live without trying to run a business in the trenches. Regardless of the outcome of the presidential election, hopefully enough Senators will respond reasonably and craft legislation that actually makes sense.
The Centrist
By , at
Fri Oct 24, 12:45:00 AM:
Thanks, TH. That's very helpful.
Here is a link to McGovern's August 8th opinion piece in the WSJ:
http://online.wsj.com/public/article_print/SB121815502467222555.html
"I worry that there has been too little discussion about EFCA's true ramifications, and I think much of the congressional support is based on a desire to give our friends among union leaders what they want. But part of being a good steward of democracy means telling our friends "no" when they press for a course that in the long run may weaken labor and disrupt a tried and trusted method for conducting honest elections."
