NYT: AFSCME Fight Continues (Seven members of AFSCME’s 35 member board concerns about negative campa

[Omaha Steve]

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/06/afscme-fight-continues/

By Jim Rutenberg

As the Time magazine political blog The Page reported on Saturday, a group of American Federation of State, Civil and Municipal Employees leaders from around the country has written a letter to the union’s International chiefs protesting their production of mailings and radio ads attacking Senator Barack Obama’s health care proposals.

Their argument is that the while the International board is supporting Senator Hillary Clinton, it should not be engaged in attacking other candidates.

The AFSCME International president Gerald W. McEntee has just responded. Here is his statement:

Seven members of AFSCME’s 35 member board wrote a letter to me expressing concerns about negative campaigns. I believe that personal attacks have no place in our democracy. They degrade candidates, insult voters and reduce politics to name-calling. Negative campaigns attack a candidates character and integrity and they don’t stick to the facts.

While I am not, by law, allowed to participate in any way in the activities of AFSCME’s political action committee in this area, about this I am clear: AFSCME’s independent expenditure effort is not a negative campaign. Rather, it has contrasted differences between the candidates on the issues, and it has focused on the two frontrunners: Senators Clinton and Obama. In an Associated Press story on December 21, Senator Obama got it right when he was discussing campaign tactics and said, “If people are arguing about policy, that’s part of politics and that’s fair. AFSCME’s campaign has been fair and has stuck to the issues.

Health care is an issue where the candidates have a different approach. Obama’s plan does not cover every American. In fact, it leaves 15 million Americans without the medical care they need. Hillary Clinton and John Edwards plans do not leave anyone behind. They cover everyone. This is the difference that the AFSCME political action committee has highlighted. There are 15 million reasons to be opposed to Obama’s health care plan, and the AFSCME campaign is simply pointing them out.

FULL story at link.