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McCain Crosses Picket Line for Leno Appearance |
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Last night, Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) appeared on NBC’s “Tonight Show with Jay Leno.” To get to this national audience, he had to cross a picket line of striking writers.
We’ve already noted the new front-runner’s lack of economic expertise, his shaky record on issues important to working families (like jobs and trade) and his vote to filibuster the Employee Free Choice Act, so perhaps it should come as no surprise he wouldn’t hesitate to cross a picket line.
Members of the Writers Guild went on strike Nov. 5, seeking a new contract that will give them a fair share of the revenues from online and DVD distribution of the shows they create.
Several other Republican candidates have crossed the Writers Guild Picket lines, starting with Rep. Ron Paul (Texas), who appeared on ABC’s “The View” in December. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney also crossed the picket line to appear on the “Tonight Show.”
No Democratic candidates have crossed picket lines to appear on television. Sen. Hillary Clinton (N.Y.) has appeared on CBS’ “Late Show with David Letterman,” as has former candidate and former Sen. John Edwards (N.C.), but no picket lines were involved. Letterman’s production company, Worldwide Pants, which produces Letterman’s “Late Show” and “The Late Late Show” with Craig Ferguson, reached an agreement that enabled the two shows to go back on the air with its writing staff and no picket line for guests to cross.
By the way, what was so important to talk about that McCain had to cross a picket line? He had to tout his endorsement by failed candidate and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and explain how well the war in Iraq is going.
Or maybe not. As the VetVoice blog notes today:
When 39 Americans are killed in January at the highest rate since September (which marked the end of the single bloodiest period to date in Iraq), we cannot say things are improving. Call it a spike, call it a bump, call it whatever you want: Just don’t call it success. The bottom line is that despite what the chickenhawk pundits and politicians are saying about the surge, American troop deaths are up 70 percent from December to January.
You can find out more about the presidential election at Working Families Vote 2008.
3 Comments
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McCain sees himself as Ronald Reagan incarnate. Breaking the writers strike is pure Reagan. Maybe its time to run shows and footage of how things were before Reagan.
Remember mother’s of small children working for minimum wage while their children fought for precious safe daycare slots; remember the extended retirement age; remember traffic controllers demanding safer updated equipment, reasonable work shifts… maybe some people have forgotten, or simply were not tuned in…
Use the media…they are public airwaves…be creative…get the message out, fight scabs -don’t endorse them!
Obama’s campaign has once again intentionally hired non-union companies to set up A/V and staging for his events. They didn’t even solicit bids from union companies.
This is not the first time this has happened. In fact it has happened in every minor market that Obama makes and appearance. They make arrangements to use non-union labor and non-union companies and then, if the union complains, hires 2 union stagehands to be on site as a concession to labor.
This is not acceptable.
Meanwhile 10 non-union workers were building his stage in Wilmington Delaware on Sunday.
10 workers who were not being paid a living wage. 10 workers who were not given popper meal breaks that day. 10 workers who did not receive benefits. 10 workers who were subject to unsafe working conditions because they did not have representation to protect them, nor did they have the experience to perform the task asked of them. 10 workers who will be unemployed on Monday. 10 workers who pay scale randomly changes at the whim of their employer depending on how random criteria sucha as “how hard the work is” and “how much we can bill the client for”.
Meanwhile Obama brought in over $1 million per day in January. But he refuses to pay fair wages and benefits. Perhaps Obama should be running as a Republican.
We have McCain crossing a picket and Obama using non-union workers. Where do we go from here? Answer: Hillary!