Back in June I wrote a pollyanna diary about the loss in the WI recall election of Walker. This may become a series but here's another one about the Michigan assault on labor act that just passed. Maybe there is some good to come out of this horrible act.
The repubicans, none of which campaigned on knee capping labor, stealthily took an ALEC piece of crap legislation regarding the right to not pay union dues or belong to a union while reaping the benefits of representation and rammed in through both houses of the Michigan legislature with lightening speed (Boehner were you watching?) at the behest of the masters of the universe in some kind of perverse pay back for losing the election. They did this in a lame duck session because they lost seats and knew it wouldn't pass in the new legislature. The slimeball governor, who said it wasn't on his agenda, signed that sucker fast. But they're republicans, so it's a feature not a bug. It's how they roll. No should be shocked that there is gambling in Casa Blanca or that republicans lie and hate unions.
But, here's the rays of sunshine. Labor is pissed. Michiganders are pissed. They have come together to fight this law. It will keep these groups, who tend to support Democratic candidates together, unified and fighting to unseat the governor and the lousy republican congress members who voted yes for this hurtful act.
Maybe just maybe, we won't have a problem with people not being interested in midterm elections. Maybe the Michigan Democratic Party and the local county parties will use this momentum and work with these groups to sign up volunteers and wage an all out gotv effort like we saw in WI and OH and unseat a lot more republicans.
The problem Democrats have is that the volunteers are let go after the election, not kept together as a group with social activities to stay united and focused. It is very hard to get trained volunteers back let alone recruit new ones, make them feel welcomed and train them to work on gotv. So these kinds of issue campaigns keep whole groups of volunteers together and working in between regular election years.
I saw this happen in the OH 02 special election in 2005-2006 cycle. It happened state wide in OH and WI the year before we started the 2012 campaign cycle. People did not have a chance to disband after the regular election year. They were needed to fight for a special election. Instead of starting from scratch building a team of volunteers, a large experienced group was in place and ready to attract even more volunteers.
So this could be a great opportunity for Democrats in MI.