McCain Campaign Threatens Oregon Union Members with Arrest

[Omaha Steve]

http://blog.aflcio.org/2008/05/15/mccain-campaign-threatens-oregon-union-members-with-arrest/

by Seth Michaels, May 15, 2008

John McCain paid a visit to Portland, Ore., this week. As usual, AFL-CIO union members came out to try to speak to the presumptive Republican presidential nominee about important issues—and, as usual, they were turned away.

In fact, McCain campaign aides were so unhappy to be confronted that they threatened these union members with arrest if they approached the room in which McCain was holding an event.

Tom Chamberlain, president of the Oregon AFL-CIO, says McCain has shown he’s not willing to listen to working families:

Sen. McCain had an unprecedented opportunity today to show that he is as concerned about working folks as he is about his wealthy friends. Instead, he reaffirmed that he doesn’t share the priorities of working folks and he is not the candidate to turn around America.

What was McCain doing instead of listening to union members’ concerns about health care and the economy? Holding a high-priced fundraiser. McCain’s fundraisers are now charging $33,100 a person. (That’s about what THREE full-time minimum-wage workers would have made, before taxes, in 2006.)

While McCain was hosting his fundraiser, he got to avoid questions that matter to working people. For example, why has he proposed a health care plan that would create a new tax on premiums for working families, but wouldn’t cut costs or cover more people?

Nancy Cochran, one of the workers who showed up to try to talk to McCain, was disappointed, saying:

For someone who claims to be a straight talker, I feel like we got the runaround. With his plan, we’re basically on our own. It feels like we’ve been forgotten. He wants us out of sight and out of mind.

Since McCain clinched the Republican nomination, AFL-CIO union members have held dozens of events across the country to confront him about his record and ask him for real solutions to our nation’s economic, health care and housing crises. He needs to step out of his high-dollar events for his elite funders and start listening to working families about how to turn around America.


http://www.aflcio.org/issues/politics/mccain.cfm?source=mccainrevealed

[dhill926]

1. sounds like some good ad material here....n/t

[alstephenson]

2. Thanks for posting.

McSame will be holding a fundraiser in Phoenix on May 27th - guess who's coming to dinner??? Supposedly Bush!!! We will be there to do our own version of meet and greet with the McBush twins.

[RustyBauble]

3. How despotic

Mark my words. This man will be worse than Bush.

[PetrusMonsFormicarum]

4. He was afraid to leave the airport

when he arrived in Portland. McCain's event was held at a hotel less than a mile from PDX. He didn't dare try to show his face in . . . "Little Beirut" (thanks George Bush Senior!).