Asymmetrical Information

There are a couple of major flaws with Weidner's logic:

1) it is absurd to assert that "the Democrats' largest and most powerful constituencies are public employee unions". Post-Wilson (i.e. from FDR onwards), the Democratic Party has built its power base on a coalition of the disenfranchised: blacks, Jews, blue-collar workers, the rural poor, and the like. While it's entirely true that public employee unions are a part of the Democratic Party's base, their power and size are dwarfed by other constituent members, including other unions (off the top of my head, the UAW and the Teamsters come to mind).

2) This kind of logic would also mean that he defense-industrial complex must be a major constituent of the Democratic Party. Why? Well, every war (with its associated massive increase in defense spending) that we've been involved in over the past 100 years (except the Gulf War) have been inaugurated under Democratic administrations. I mean, like, it's so totally obvious.

3) Even you somehow managed to accept the ridiculous premise that public employee unions are the driving force behind the Democratic Party, the the numbers simply don't back it up. During the Clinton administration, the size of government actually shrank; in the mean time, it looks like the size of government is increasing under Bush fils. Check the numbers.

Frankenstein, I think you're off on this one: the public unions, along with the trial lawyers, are probably the biggest fundraising and activist support group the Democrats have. They're absolutely enormous in terms of the power they wield; that's why the Democrats spent so much political capital on an issue that was running against them by something like an 80% margin. The public unions, along with the teacher's unions (which aren't quite identical) are the heart of the get-out-the-vote drives, the fundraising drives, the issue ad campaigns, and all the other apparatus that the Democrats depend on to get elected. The unions get their own delegations to the convention, and their own seat at the policy table. He didn't bother to prove it because it's widely known by anyone who follows policy on a national level.

Also, the public employee union, the AFSME, is by far the largest union in the country, dwarfing any other union, and MUCH larger than any private union. The teacher's unions run second and third. Overall, there are more public employees unionized than private. That's why the focus of labor has focused to opposing any cuts in government spending, rather than traditional labor issues. For example, the labor coalition supports OSHA, despite the fact that OSHA decreases the need for, and thus the power of, the private sector unions. But it INCREASES the number of public sector employees. The labor vote now supports private sector labor initiatives only to the extent that they do not interfere with public sector livelihoods: steel tariffs, for example.

Public employee unions are in effect perpetual in that membership is mandatory and the chance of the membership rejecting the union are miniscule.
Every new union job is between 10 and 20 dollars a month to the democrats.

Also, ... the AFSME, is by far the largest union in the country ... and MUCH larger than any private union.

Check the numbers, Jane. The AFSCME has 1.3 million members; the Teamsters has 1.4 million.

The fact remains that during the Clinton administration, the Federal government shrank, which would suggest that the theory that Democratic administrations always increase the size of government as a form of patronage (a theory that's fraught with holes to begin with) has some problems when faced with the real world.

And let's put the democrats=lawyers canard to rest while we're at it, too. It's true that lawyers were Al Gore's leading campaign contributors during the 2000 campaign ($5.2 million). However, the numbers files with the FEC say that attorneys gave more money to the Bush campaign during 2000.

But the teamsters don't work, and pay dues, full time; check their respective cap and you'll see there's a 3:1 difference in body employment, with the teamsters shrinking. The respective money and power are very different. For example, more than 10% of the delegates at the democratic convention represent the teachers union.

Also, while the government did shrink under Clinton, I think if you look you'll find that the civil service grew while the military, which is non-union, shrank. I am under the impression, though I could be wrong, that total union workforce actually grew under Clinton, especially after 1996.

The question is not whether attorneys gave money to Bush; the attorneys at issue are the trial lawyers, the only organized group of lawyers, and efficiently organized for the purpose of blocking tort reform. The other attorneys gave not as attorneys, but in support of another cause, or as private individuals. The trial lawyers give on the one issue of tort reform.

The Federal Government SHRANK under Clinton? By what measure? Spending sure didn't. Did the actual number of employees and contract employees? I doubt it. I can't remember a year when government was smaller than the year before. Got some numbers, Franky?

Combine federal, state and local employee unions and you rule the world.

Government spending can increase while federal employment shrinks if agencies use contract workers. This is most common in defense and allows admininstrations to claim reducing the federal payroll without reducing services.

I hope this helps.

Frankenstein writes:

Post-Wilson (i.e. from FDR onwards), the Democratic Party has built its power base on a coalition of the disenfranchised: blacks, Jews, blue-collar workers, the rural poor, and the like.

I hate to pick on this leftist cliché, but building a party on a "coalition of disenfranchised" would be pretty asinine, since by definition such a coalition couldn't vote for you. You'll have to find some other romantic word, such as "underprivileged."

To be more specific, he refers to those who have been at various times economically and socially disenfranchised. I know that the Republican worshippers who dominate here like to pretend that these differences don't exist, but they do.

Still, you say "disenfranchised" like these people are the victims of someone. As if someone is actually depriving them of something. Or more specifically, as if someone or some group is preventing them from accessing the same opportunities in life that everyone else has. This is objectionable and unsupportable. Unless you have some argument in support of that statement, outside of plopping it out there like it's axiomatic.

Depriving someone of opportunity to fail utterly is also disenfranchisement. Failure is sometimes the most important teacher we have.

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