Denver was spoiled last time out with a wonderful convention and a winning presidential candidate. The Democratic National Convention for the same winning President will be held in North Carolina, a right-to-work-for-less state with the requisite right-wing Republican wackos Virginia Foxx and Patrick McHenry, and endangered Blue Dog Democrats like Heath Schuler. Convention sites are picked for a multitude of reasons, but having the convention in a state that supports labor unions and middle class workers usually a prime factor in the choice.
The Democratic National Committee had other priorities this time. Trying to have a positive affect on North Carolina's voters might be too much to ask for with this, but getting unions to overlook yet another snub by Democratsis too much to ask:
Democrats' self-imposed ban on corporate donations has made it tough to raise cash for the Democratic National Convention, and their hope that unions would step in to fill the void appears to have hit a snag, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Wary of their budgets and upset that the convention will be hosted in right-to-work North Carolina, organized labor won't be giving Democrats the money they're requesting for the Charlotte festivities, union officials told the paper. Some unions, including UNITE HERE, the large service workers union, will not contribute to the convention at all.
The obsolete notion that Democrats have to triangulate away from their base to be successful once elected should be dead by now. It's been proved wrong for years now. Barack Obama and the DNC have done it at the national level. Bill Ritter and Michael Bennet have done it in Colorado. If you pivot away from your base, or negotiate with those who have no intention of compromising, or triangulate away from your voters to those who will never vote for you, you are a political fool.
I applaud the fact that unions won't give their full measure of support for the DNC convention in North Carolina. Have they gotten the same from Democrats?
