NYT: A.F.L.-C.I.O. Aims at McCain in New Push (this weekend)

[Omaha Steve]

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/05/08/afl-cio-aims-at-mccain-in-new-push/

May 8, 2008, 9:52 am

A.F.L.-C.I.O. Aims at McCain in New Push

By Ariel Alexovich

Updated If you’re a union member in Denver and Detroit — and you see earnest-looking folks holding a clipboard or pamphlets appear on your doorstep this weekend — they’re probably A.F.L.-C.I.O. volunteers, eager to tell you about John McCain’s health care plan.

That is, they want to tell you why they think his health care plan, and economic policies in general, are bad for working families.

The union announced Thursday its plans to conduct a wide-reaching door-to-door canvass of 200,000 union swing voters in 22 battleground states over the next two weekends.

Volunteers will push the message outlined by A.F.L.-C.I.O. President John Sweeney, who said in a statement that Mr. McCain “wants to tax health care benefits and supports unfair trade policies that send family-supporting jobs overseas.”

The union is concerned that Mr. McCain’s health care plan will push workers into the private insurance market where they will pay higher premiums than they do as part of a collective bargain.

“If Senator McCain thinks he can hoodwink working families into believing he’s supportive of an economy that works for them, he’s sorely mistaken,” Mr. Sweeney said. “Everywhere McCain goes, the voices of working families call on him to reverse course and reject the failed Bush economic policies.”


FULL story at link.