Although I am proud of the efforts in Wisconsin and here in Ohio to prevent the cheap labor conservatives from ending collective bargaining for public employees, I can’t help but wonder how many of those protesting voted for the people who are now wanting to cut their benefits.
Union members don’t all vote in one block even though Union leadership may support or endorse certain candidates.
Union voters responded; they just didn’t have quite the same level of response to the whole Democratic ticket. Lee Fisher got 55 percent of the union vote to Rob Portman’s 43 percent – and Portman heads to Washington. Meanwhile, Ted Strickland’s share of union support: 62 percent, to John Kasich’s 37 percent…. and that race is still too close to call. If Strickland does hold on to the governor’s mansion, he may have union voters to thank.
It would be interesting to see how many of that 40% or so who voted GOP in 2010 were in the Statehouse this past week complaining about Kaisch’s attempt to end their collective bargaining. And it’s not like it was out of the blue. Kaisch pointed out he wanted to break public employee unions during the 2010 campaign.
One of these days I hope all people realize that if you vote against your best interests then you get what you deserve.