Big Labor’s big threat to punish misbehaving Democrats has largely evaporated in the heat of the midterms, as unions now scramble to rescue incumbents they once pilloried for opposing health care reform.
It’s a bitter, but necessary, political pill, considering that would-be Speaker John Boehner, the top Republican in the House, has threatened to roll back many of the pro-union policies of President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats.
The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees — on pace to spend a record-shattering $90 million on the midterms — has begun a phone-banking, door-knocking, leafleting and get-out-the-vote effort for a handful of conservative Democratic House members the 1.6 million-member union once blackballed.