USA Today: AFL-CIO plans $200 million mobilization for 2008 election cycle

[Omaha Steve]

http://blogs.usatoday.com/onpolitics/2007/09/afl-cio-plans-2.html

The AFL-CIO said today the federation and its member unions will deploy 200,000 volunteers and spend $200 million to get out their message and their voters in the 2008 elections.

The labor group also said it has identified 23 priority states, topped by Ohio, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Michigan and Wisconsin. All are swing states in statewide elections for governor, senator and president, and have swing House districts as well.

The AFL-CIO said its "massive" mobilization of 13.6 million voters in 32 states was pivotal to Democratic takeovers last year in the House and Senate. The group said it aims to elect up to six new union supporters to the Senate and five to the House, as well as a new president sympathetic to labor.

Gerald McEntee, president of AFSCME and political chairman of the AFL-CIO, said union members would knock on more doors and turn out more voters than ever before. “We're going for the Trifecta: the House, the Senate, and the White House,” he said.

The federation and its unions spent $150 million in 2004, The AP reports, but failed to elect Democrat John Kerry or a Democratic Congress. In Ohio, which Democrats believe cost them the White House in 2004, people in union households accounted for 28% of the vote.