UAW Prez Bob King Tells Dem Members: Stay Away From the Michigan Republican Primary

by P.D. Lesko

A2Politico political writer Joe DiSano is getting behind Operation Hilarity. He posted a piece at the Huffington Post Detroit channel that has a rousing debate going between those who think DiSano is suggesting something unethical, and those who believe all is fair in love, war and politics. A2Politico posted two pieces about Operation Hilarity, a political game suggested by Markos Zuniga, the owner of Daily Kos, a liberal blog. Zuniga is not the first political trickster to come up with the idea. In 2008, Rush Limbaugh launched Operation Chaos and encouraged Republicans to vote for Hillary Clinton in the presidential primary.

I spoke on the subject of Operation Hilarity last week to Celeste Headlee, host of the BBC/PRI radio show “The Takeaway.”  The Takeaway is a partnership of global news leaders. It is a co-production of PRI (Public Radio International) and WNYC Radio in collaboration with the BBC World Service, The New York Times and WGBH Boston. The question was simple: should Michigan Democrats cross-over in the open Republican primary and cast their votes for Rick Santorum. Operation Hilarity is predicated on the notion that the longer the Republican primary drags on, the better it would be for President Obama.

In addition to DiSano, a political analyst and consultant, others prominent in Michigan politics are weighing in on Operation Hilarity. Michigan Democratic Party (MDP) Chair Mark Brewer has spammed out emails that suggest the GOP has “encouraged” Democrats to—meddle in the Republican primary. As always, Brewer is ready to stretch the argument. At the MichiganLiberal.com, blogger Eric Baerren writes in a piece in response to DiSano’s HuffPo essay, “The Obama people and Mark Brewer both say they aren’t involved in overtly organizing said activities, but I think both are guilty of softly pushing things in that direction. It’s a ‘We’re not going to tell you to go vote for Rick Santorum, but we’re not going to hold it against you if on Tuesday you cast in an election you’re compelled to pay for through income taxes’ tenor.”

Ari Adler, spokesman for House Speaker Jase Bolger, dismissed Brewer’s idea in a February 25, 2012 piece published by MIRS: “Mark Brewer is more dangerous than ever to the Democrats because he’s starting to believe his own goofball rhetoric,” Adler said.

However, Obama’s campaign recently emailed a statement to supporters for Michigan primary watch parties. The email included a reminder that Tuesday’s contest is a GOP primary: “Michigan is already playing a key role in this election — and as Republicans go to the polls for their primary this Tuesday, February 28th, we’ll be using their big day to out-organize each and every one of their contenders.”

“Volunteers across Michigan are hosting primary day house parties this Tuesday in cities all over our state. So while Republicans cast their ballots, we’ll be getting together to prepare for the months ahead and build the grassroots here in Michigan.”

The Detroit News conservative political blogger Dan Calabrese was even less amused with DiSano’s call to action. Calabrese writes:

Here’s a guy [DiSano] who decries racist attack ads when he isn’t busy doing his own. But that’s about enough time spent introducing you to Joe.

He also blogs for the Huffington Post, I guess, and today he implores Michigan Democrats to cross over in the GOP primary and vote for Santorum – not for the purpose of delivering Santorum the nomination, but just to serve as an embarrassment to Romney.

In the process, he slips and admits that Dems count on the national media to do their bidding for them:

Don’t be distracted by the sideshow. Santorum matters little on Tuesday. He is only a convenient vessel to embarrass Romney on the national stage. The Romney people have set the bar so high in Michigan through their massive spending Romney needs to win a resounding victory in Michigan of at least 10 percent to beat expectations and quell the demands for a stronger nominee. The national press is ready to tell the story that Romney got beat on his home turf. You can help make that happen.

I have not actually had the pleasure of dealing directly with Joe – and I think I’ll pass – but from what I hear, he is at least quite unashamed of his willingness to do or say absolutely anything to win a political battle. So much so, that he even puts it in writing here for all to see.

Well, one person with whom Calabrese’s cranky, “We are not amused” blog entry would certainly resonate (but for an entirely different reason) in UAW President Bob King.

“It’s the Republicans voting; they have a right to pick who they want,” King said at an event Friday outside Ford Field protesting Mitt Romney, and reminding anyone who has been living under a rock or who hasn’t answered and listened to dozens of robo-calls on the subject, that Romney opposed the auto bailout.

King (right) is not encouraging his members to turn out Tuesday.

“I’m urging my members to work hard to rebuild the right to organize, the right to collectively bargain, to support [President] Barack Obama, he said. “And really, we want to rebuild a broader movement that fights for enough education K through 12, that fights for new roads and new highways and new bridges and new grid structure. We want a strong America. So we’re building, we’re working with environmentalists, with women’s groups, with poverty groups, with all kinds of different groups in society who believe in a strong middle class, who believe in the dignity of every individual — to rebuild, really, the democracy and the middle class in America.”

King said, “I don’t care” who the Republicans nominate for president, adding that he’s going to “work with every bit of energy I can to make sure President Obama gets elected and make sure we get majorities elected in the [U.S.] House and the Senate that care if we have a strong manufacturing base, care about justice in America, care about a fair distribution of wealth in America.”

State politicos are not as sanguine as King. Last week, Senate Minority Leader Gretchen Whitmer spoke on the Senate floor about the “completely unnecessary” primary costing $10 million.

“Don’t be surprised if we cross the ballot and play games,” she said.

That prompted pointed responses from both Republican Senators Rick Jones and Senate Minority Floor Leader Arlan Meekhof.

Jones took the floor and told his colleagues that he hopes that “Democrats cross the line become common-sense Republicans.” And Meekhof encouraged Democrats to “take advantage of taxpayer dollars [spent] and participate . . . in the great American experiment in which we live.”

There’s something particularly noble in Bob King’s refusal to urge his membership to meddle in the Michigan Republican primary, particularly given the shellacking public unions have taken at the hands of the Republican-controlled Michigan legislature and our ALEC-inspired Republican governor, Rick Snyder. King’s stance and his public comments harken back to something then Senator Barack Obama wrote in a 2005 blog entry posted to Daily Kos:

The bottom line is that our job is harder than the conservatives’ job.  After all, it’s easy to articulate a belligerent foreign policy based solely on unilateral military action, a policy that sounds tough and acts dumb; it’s harder to craft a foreign policy that’s tough and smart.  It’s easy to dismantle government safety nets; it’s harder to transform those safety nets so that they work for people and can be paid for.  It’s easy to embrace a theological absolutism; it’s harder to find the right balance between the legitimate role of faith in our lives and the demands of our civic religion.  But that’s our job.  And I firmly believe that whenever we exaggerate or demonize, or oversimplify or overstate our case, we lose.  Whenever we dumb down the political debate, we lose.  A polarized electorate that is turned off of politics, and easily dismisses both parties because of the nasty, dishonest tone of the debate, works perfectly well for those who seek to chip away at the very idea of government because, in the end, a cynical electorate is a selfish electorate.