As you already know a huge vote is due in Ohio on November 8. Actually, two.
Issue 3 is an amendment to Ohio’s Constitution immunizing the people of Ohio from Obamacare, which should still be a hot button issue with voters, although it has been almost two years since it was passed. It could drive many people to the polls to vote YES against Obama.
But to me the more important issue, because of what it can undo if it succeeds, is Issue 2, which is based on a petition drive by Ohio’s public unions to undo legislation by the newly installed Republican legislature elected during the November 2010 tidal wave election.
That new law, held in abeyance now for eight months due to the unions’ petition drive to repeal it, established in essence the same sort of curtailments of union prerogatives, such as a collective bargaining and a monopoly on health insurance coverage, that propelled Wisconsin to the national spotlight last winter…and which, in a few short months, returned many school districts back to solvency.
Check out Jaded’s post here, about a Phoenix AFSCME, a public service union possibly running an insurance scam there, just to see how big a deal this really is.
What the unions stand to lose
We already know from Wisconsin, the unions and members won’t lose jobs in Ohio. In fact, they’re hiring. And members have more control over their paychecks.
What unions do stand to lose is a sweeeeet deal with their insurance monopoly, and maybe even a few years in stir, as suddenly, the books aren’t open even to people whose job it is to look at the books, as we see in Arizona. If it walks like an embezzler and talks like an embezzler, it’s probably a Democrat.
Fact: although the Wisconsin GOP wasn’t directly targeting insurance plans, it seems the unions had a monopoly on offering plans to its members, which many of the members have now dumped since other insurer’s have been allowed to bid lower-priced plans to individual school districts. Big savings…for both the taxpayers and the members.
The unions were cheating (stealing from, screwing, call it what you like) their own rank and file, and the Wisconsin members now know it. This is what they don’t want Ohio union members to find out about if the new law ever goes into effect.
The Media and Tea Parties and the Other Usual Suspects
So, you can see why the media has been very quiet about this looming vote. They don’t want to wake anyone up. Instead they’ve concentrated on other things like the vote in Mississippi to tighten eminent domain laws arising from powers the Supreme Court “awarded” the states in the infamous Kelo case in Connecticut in 2005.
That’s a big deal, too, so don’t get me wrong, but several other states have already enacted anti-Kelo laws which are very popular with voters.
Why the media is quiet is because they believe most of the same Ohio voters who stormed the poling places a year ago to throw the Democrats and other crooks out, aren’t really paying attention. They’re all asleep. After all, conventional political wisdom tells them that Ohio voters always sleep through off-year elections.
Why the unions are loud, witness AFSCME in Pheonix, is because the last thing they want their members to do is find out their union bosses are the ones sticking a knife in workers’ backs, not Wall Street. The last thing public unions can afford to do is see their membership drop (from 36%), and union loyalty drop even further, as it has in the AFL-CIO (below 8%).
In Ohio, the media wants the people to stay asleep. And quite honestly, so do a lot of establishment Republicans, who simply do not like having to go back and learn a brand new playbook for political analysis, if this tea party wave continues.
By the numbers, where once again the Conventional Wisdom axiom is at risk.
In 2010, John Kasich won the governorship by a 100,000 vote margin over incumbent Democrat, Ted Strickland, of approx 3.9 million votes cast. Down ticket, the margin leaned a little wider for the GOP. It was a landslide, and a reversal of what Jennifer Brunner and the Secretary of State Project (a Soros operation) had been trying to establish in several states around America.
(AP Photo by Jay LaPreto)
It was a big, big deal, especially in Ohio.
Standing up against this tidal wave is a total union membership in Ohio of about 660,000, of which about 200,000 are state public employees. Federal employees would boost that somewhat.
By the numbers all the Republicans have to do is show up, if you believe the new tidal wave mood of the country is awake. This is the greatest worry.
I know few people in Ohio these days, but conservatives like myself outside of Ohio are chomping at the bit to vote. I’d vote tomorrow, the next day and the next if it would strike a blow at the Democrats, the Left and the crooked unions. We’d give worlds to throw a (fill in the blank) at the Left in 2011, in preparation for 2012.
Instead, we’re told the angry citizens of Ohio have gone back to sleep. And no one dare wake them.
The Imperial Union Juggernaut
I’m told that money once again rules the roost, and that union money is out there by the bucket. They have a deep, deep war chest, and one of the axioms of old school political analysis is that money still rules the election process. Conventional Wisdom has already placed its bet on Red, with fingers crossed that the people won’t sneak up on them again.
Because 2010 dispelled much of their security in these things, political analysts of both parties worry that if they can no longer predict and control an election via the dollar, they may be soon out of business. So they’d just as soon not see two million sleeping Ohioans suddenly wake, and go vote on Tuesday. And they’d just as soon not to have to confront a rank and file union membership voting against their leadership on this.
They’d just as soon not see another army of Reagan Democrats arise.
600,000 fractured union votes, plus their families, against 1.8 million Yes votes, if you calculate the GOP turnout in 2010, tells me the money the unions are spending is to 1) insure the rank and file vote “No”, and 2) as many of the citizens who voted to throw the bums out out in 2010 stay home, asleep. This is called depressing the vote, for like Obama, a brazillian dollars won’t buy them one new vote…that is living above ground, at least.
So, vote Yes, Dammit.
For there’s more at stake here than just losing all the ground Ohioans gained in 2010. Much more.
I know few people in Ohio will even read my words here, but the Left, and quite frankly, the Establishment Wing of the Republican, are looking for, and needing a big turnaround to crow about in 2011. Job security. A victory here for the unions can turn things around to the extent that it will cause newly elected Republican legislators to believe the people won’t back them in a pinch. The unions want to be able to project to every legislator that Ohio is theirs, not the peoples’.
If we are going to get the country back, we have to take new ground in 2012 instead of having to go back and recover ground we frittered away in 2011. We have the unions on the run, we need to keep them on the run.
I believe when a bad man is down, “Kick him.”
Hard.
Twice.
Dare them to play all those cards they keep threatening to play.
If Ohio gives back to the imperial unions what they took away from unions just a year ago, it will be the voters who walked out on their elected representatives. It will be a signal to the Ohio state senate, “No, we don’t have your back,” and it will be years before another senate will stand up and spit in the eyes of the unions again.
It will be a vote to continue the squeamish, frightened manner we say we hate in our politicians today. We will have “met the enemy, and he is us.” (Pogo).
Instead, just finish it.
