Kimberly Strassel, the Potomac Watch columnist at the Wall Street Journal, believes that the card check “victory” for House Democrats marked the “ultimate payoff” that will “end . . . the honeymoon” for congressional Democrats.
“Democrats won in November in part by playing down their special interest patrons — unions, environmentalists, trial lawyers — and by playing up a new commitment to the moderate middle class. The big question was whether the party had the nerve to govern the way it campaigned, and card check was the first test. The answer? AFL-CIO chief John Sweeney isn’t smiling for nothing,” Strassel writes.
Strassel continues: “[t]he card check, in contrast, is a lesson in how the party’s liberal base forces Democrats to back political losers. The legislation’s only purpose is to give unions an unfair advantage in organizing, namely by eliminating the secret ballot in union elections and instead allowing thugs to openly bully workers into joining up. Americans understand and despise this, with polls showing 90% of the public thinks card check is a racket.”