Elections are based on one thing and one thing only, the economy. Americans judge the economy with only one measuring stick, the unemployment rate. Want to predict if an incumbent politician of any party holds their seat in November? Just look at the unemployment rate of the constituency in October.
The American economy could experience painfully slow growth and stubbornly high unemployment for a decade or longer as a result of the 2007 collapse of the housing market and the economic turmoil that followed, according to an authority on the history of financial crises.
http://www.nytimes.com/...
President Reagan destroyed the American Labor Movement during his presidency. He used strong heavy handed, if not illegal, efforts to destroy unions and he started with the Air Traffic Controllers within his first year.
President Reagan fires air traffic controllers
This was the beginning of the end for American Labor Movement's political power.
Many union members were illegally fired during the 1980s.
Union membership and public approval of unions also began to fall in the 1980s.
Under Reagan and then President George H. W. Bush, the US abandoned the protectionist tariff and trade policies championed by the Labor Movement since the Great Depression, and came out against quotas and in favor of the GATT/WTO policy of minimal economic barriers to global trade.
Free trade with Canada came about as a result of the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement of 1987, which led in 1994 to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). It was based on Bush I's plan to enlarge the scope of the market for American firms to include Canada and Mexico.
President Clinton, with strong Republican support and prodding, pushed NAFTA through Congress over the vehement objection of labor unions.
Likewise in 2000 he worked with Republicans to give China entry into WTO and "most favored nation" trading status (i.e., low tariffs). NAFTA and WTO advocates promoted an optimistic vision of the future, with prosperity to be based on intellectuals skills and managerial know-how more than on routine hand labor.
They promised that free trade meant lower prices for consumers. Opposition to liberalized trade came increasingly from labor unions, who argued that this system also meant lower wages and fewer jobs for American workers who could not compete against wages of less than a dollar an hour. The shrinking size and diminished political clout of these unions repeatedly left them on the losing side.
Today's economy is the result of those decisions. So when people ask, so where are the jobs? Tell them that they are buried with Reagan and if they want to work that they should learn Chinese or Indian and make sure their passports are not expired.
There is another option, unionize.
Employee Free Choice Act
Politically, supporting this bill could be electorally dangerous because the corporations are gunning to destroy and vilify any politician as "an evil Godless Communist" that supports it. They will go as far as bankrupting the country to stop it.
During an October 17, 2008 conference call, Home Depot co-founder Bernie Marcus spoke against the EFCA, calling it "the demise of a civilization". He went on to say: "If a retailer has not gotten involved with this, if he has not spent money on this election, if he has not sent money to Norm Coleman and these other guys," then those retailers "should be shot; should be thrown out of their goddamn jobs."[54]
In January 2009, FedEx exercised an option to buy fifteen Boeing 777F planes and had an option to buy fifteen more. The contract between the two companies allows FedEx to cancel the second order if Congress passes the EFCA.[55] In April 2009, the Associated Builders and Contractors sent a letter to every member of Congress on behalf of 3,000 construction firms opposing the bill in any form.[56]
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
How many politicians are willing to risk losing their office to support this act?
Update for the Obama bashers,
After thirty years of Reaganomics that has steadily changed the whole fundamental structure of our economy, Obama has already had 18 months to fix it.
My answer to that. Get real.