Subtitle: My lunch with the group behind Citizens United and Proposition 32.
Ever wondered what it takes to infiltrate the infamous Cali-Republican kingmaker group? Wonder no further:
1: Look the part (wear suit).
2. Act natural (for best results).
3. Regurgitate freemarketeer rhetoric.
4. gush about Lincoln Club activities.
It's that easy!
Prop. 32, if you are not aware, is the same old "paycheck protection" proposition that has been popping up in California since 1998. It claims to stop corporations and unions from using paycheck deductions for "special interests" in political campaigns, but as Fleischer points out, companies don't need to deduct anything for special interests, at worst they could just pay their employees less. The entire purpose of paycheck protection is to bust unions, as they endorse and coordinate with political candidates all the time to protect their members' rights and standard of living. Mind you, it won't be an immediate bust, but it would be like surgically removing a person's voice and arms and tossing him out to the wolves. I'd call it a "greatly accelerated" bust.
The good news is that it's polling poorly. The bad news is that since Citizens United, which the Lincoln Club was a significant player in, could help drain unions' campaign funding. It's my opinion that we can't fight them by their own game forever, and a massive retaliatory strike with a reinvigorated labor movement is necessary to keep these lizards at bay. Anything less is the death of unions and labor rights in America.
What makes Matthew Fleischer's intrusion most interesting is that it's a rare, inside glimpse of local Republican strategy. For example, The Lincoln Club recognizes that they're racist, and while they have no plans to not be racist, they plan on rehabilitating their image by using Gloria Romero to get the coveted Latino vote. Strange bedfellows, indeed, but she's fully corrupt now and could deliver the Latino legitimacy needed to advance their next anti-union/anti-worker project - securing cheap migrant labor to drive down wages. Gloria's role in advocating the dissolution of teachers unions to pave the way for charter schools is just icing on the cake.
Anyway, all of this strategy talk in front of a newcomer that hasn't paid $3900 in membership dues first, at a prospective members luncheon. Now that's interesting...
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Previous Matthew Fleischer namedrop on DK can be found here.