Good news!
The Boston Police Union, in a labor dispute with the mayor, had been threatening to picket the Democratic National Convention. A tactic I considered totally inappropriate, as their dispute is with the mayor, not with the national party. In any case, the fact that Kerry did not attend the national conference of mayors in Boston this past weekend resulted in a pledge by the union not to picket the Dem. Convention.
Whew Another bullet dodged by Kerry. A picket line around the convention would've been plain ugly--regardless of the merits of the dispute you just know that the media would've been showing Kerry crossing a picket like over and over and over...
Here are some excerpts from an article in today's Boston Globe:
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Boston's main police union abandoned yesterday their threat to picket at the site of next month's Democratic National Convention, handing Senator John F. Kerry a major victory on the day he honored the union's picket line by not making a speech before a US Conference of Mayors meeting in Boston.
Kerry's cancellation of the long-scheduled address was widely praised by union leaders, and one Kerry campaign official said yesterday that the move was made in part with the expectation that the union would respond by promising not to picket outside the FleetCenter during the convention.
"The senator . . . kept his eye on the big prize, the convention, in order to achieve a trade-off with the unions," said a Kerry campaign official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.