Working America Takes Cues from Dick Armey to Get Out the Vote

by Stephanie Taylor, Oct 27, 2006

Working America members in Pennsylvania (above) and in states like ohio are getting out the vote among America’s working families.

Here at Working America, we’ve had enough of a Congress that acts like a rubber stamp for the Bush administration. We’re fed up with a Congress that doesn’t work for working families. So we’re doing something about it in the states that matter most. One of the key battleground states this election is Ohio.

The state’s 20 electoral votes decided the 2004 presidential election in favor of George W. Bush. This year, there is an important senate race, a governor’s race and six separate congressional races that are a dead heat. Many of these may be decided by just a few hundred votes.

But like the old song goes, things are turning around in Ohio. Working America, a community affiliate of the AFL-CIO, includes more than 700,000 members in the state, thanks to months of dedicated work by our crack canvass teams. That makes more than 1.5 million labor voters in Ohio—the single biggest voting bloc in the state.In all kinds of weather, heat, rain and snow, Working America organizers and other labor organizers and volunteers have been knocking on doors for months, talking to working families about the issues that matter most: the minimum wage initiative, affordable health care, good jobs and a secure retirement.

Their work is making a real difference this election. Take the current race in Congressional District 15. Representative Deborah Pryce (R-Ohio), a senior member of the House, expected an easy walk to victory. But now she is tied in the polls with her Democratic challenger, Mary Jo Kilroy. The reason? A Pryce spokesman said:

“[Labor is] the only reason Kilroy is even in the game.”

But we can’t leave anything to chance. For the final four days of the election, Working America expects to have more than 300 volunteers and staff in targeted Ohio districts, talking with other Working America members door-to-door about the candidates who will fight for working family issues.

Ohio working families are supporting Senate candidate Sherrod Brown and gubernatorial candidate Ted Strickland. Brown, a U.S. representative, voted 97 percent of the time for working families, while his opponent, Mike DeWine, voted against working families 80 percent of the time he has been in the Senate.

Meanwhile, Strickland supports an increase in the state’s minimum wage, where voters have a chance this election to boost the wage. His opponent, Ken Blackwell, opposes a minimum wage increase and will roll back prevailing wage laws and project labor agreements.

Recently, Republican strategist Dick Armey, the former House majority leader, grumbled to a New York Times reporter that his party is losing votes in Ohio:

The Republicans are talking about things like gay marriage and so forth, and the Democrats are talking about the things people care about, like how do I pay my bills?

Even Armey recognizes the facts: Working people care about the bread-and-butter issues. In Ohio, we’ll keep talking about the issues that matter to working families all the way through Nov. 7. It’s how we will win.

After all, working family issues are the issues that labor knows best.

This portion of this website is paid for by the AFL-CIO Committee on Political Education Political Contributions Committee, 815 16th St., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20006, with voluntary contributions from union members and their families, and is not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee.

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