David Sirota: Remembering What Nixon Learned
[David Sirota is a nationally syndicated weekly newspaper columnist for Creators Syndicate. He is the author of Hostile Takeover: How Big Money and Corruption Conquered Our Government and How We Take It Back (Crown 2006). His second book, The Uprising, is due in the Spring of 2008.]
A half century ago, Richard Nixon spearheaded his party's national congressional campaign in the face of a recession like we face today. Then Dwight Eisenhower's vice president, he decided the GOP would champion anti-worker laws pioneered in the segregationist south as a way to defeat Democrats. Specifically, he rolled out "right to work" ballot initiatives to weaken the labor movement. These measures ban contracts that compel employees benefiting 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. Here 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 56 percent of the state opposes "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....
Perlstein notes that after his anti-labor strategy backfired in 1958, Nixon "hardly said an ill word about the labor movement in public again." He learned a lesson 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.
Read entire article at AlterNet
A half century ago, Richard Nixon spearheaded his party's national congressional campaign in the face of a recession like we face today. Then Dwight Eisenhower's vice president, he decided the GOP would champion anti-worker laws pioneered in the segregationist south as a way to defeat Democrats. Specifically, he rolled out "right to work" ballot initiatives to weaken the labor movement. These measures ban contracts that compel employees benefiting 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. Here 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 56 percent of the state opposes "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....
Perlstein notes that after his anti-labor strategy backfired in 1958, Nixon "hardly said an ill word about the labor movement in public again." He learned a lesson 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.