Why Did SEIU Give $100,000 to the Republican Governors Association?

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.inthesetimes.com/working/entry/6351/why_did_seiu_give_100000_to_the_republican_governors_association/

Thursday August 19 2:42 pm

By Lindsay Beyerstein

This post has been updated with new material

The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) donated $100,000 to the Republican Governors Association (RGA) in June, according to public records. The union has given nearly a quarter of a million dollars to the RGA in the 2010 election cycle.

SEIU has assiduously cultivated a reputation as progressive union implacably opposed to the Republican agenda. The union spent more than any other outside group to elect Barack Obama. Then-president Andy Stern joined Obama in his box on inauguration day. During the fight for health care reform SEIU was one of Obama's most powerful allies.


An anti-McCain rally during the 2008 election. SEIU was one of the biggest supporters of the Obama campaign. (Photo by Molly Theobald)


Yet for all its progressive rhetoric, SEIU appears to be quietly hedging its bets for the midterm elections. SEIU has given a total of $200,450 to the RGA in the 2010 election cycle ($100,450 in 2009 and $100,000 in 2010 so far.)

Documents provided by SEIU after the initial version of this post was published show that the union gave approximately $100,000 to the RGA in 2007, and $75,000 in 2008. (An earlier version of this post, based on the RGA's disclosures to the IRS, states incorrectly that the SEIU gave a total of $450 to the RGA in the 2008 election cycle.)

After consulting with SEIU, WITT re-checked the RGA disclosures on file with the IRS and discovered the RGA had disclosed an additional $100,000 in2007 that we had initially overlooked. However, the RGA did not disclose any donations from SEIU during 2008. "We think the RGA might have misreported in 2007 and 2008 based on our review of the IRS site," said Michelle Ringuette, director of strategic services for SEIU.

The RGA could not immediately be reached for comment.

FULL story at link.

[BrklynLiberal]

1. Log Cabin repukes, African-America repukes, Hispanic repukes, Muslim repukes

poor repukes, unemployed repukes, and now Union repukes!!!???

How the hell do the repukes do that???!!!! Mass hypnosis? Chemicals?

I mean really! HOW DO THEY GET THESE PEOPLE TO BE SO ENTHUSED FOR THOSE THAT WOULD THROW THEM TO THE GATORS IF GIVEN THE CHANCE???

http://markmaynard.com/?p=7501

<snip>

The best part of the article is the contribution by Thomas Frank, the author of What’s the Matter with Kansas?: How Conservatives Won the Heart of America. Here’s a highlight:

….Right-wing politics has become a vehicle for channelling this popular anger against intellectual snobs. The result is that many of America’s poorest citizens have a deep emotional attachment to a party that serves the interests of its richest.

Thomas Frank says that whatever disadvantaged Americans think they are voting for, they get something quite different:

“You vote to strike a blow against elitism and you receive a social order in which wealth is more concentrated than ever before in our life times, workers have been stripped of power, and CEOs are rewarded in a manner that is beyond imagining… It’s like a French Revolution in reverse in which the workers come pouring down the street screaming more power to the aristocracy.”

As Mr Frank sees it, authenticity has replaced economics as the driving force of modern politics. The authentic politicians are the ones who sound like they are speaking from the gut, not the cerebral cortex. Of course, they might be faking it, but it is no joke to say that in contemporary politics, if you can fake sincerity, you have got it made.

And here, according to the author of the article, is the big takeaway message from all of this… “If people vote against their own interests, it is not because they do not understand what is in their interest or have not yet had it properly explained to them. They do it because they resent having their interests decided for them by politicians who think they know best. There is nothing voters hate more than having things explained to them as though they were idiots. As the saying goes, in politics, when you are explaining, you are losing. And that makes anything as complex or as messy as healthcare reform a very hard sell.”
<snip>

[TheWraith]

2. Same reason they backed my asshole Republican state senator last cycle.

Because they want to have it both ways.

[Heywood J]

3. Whose signature is on the check?

Is it someone authorized to sign for making political donations, and was the donation authorized through proper channels?