Analysts say there's no way to calculate precisely how much labor has spent on its grass-roots efforts over the years, since it isn't reported to the Federal Election Commission. It's a part of their base that they don't have to think about. The Republican National Committee is launching a drive to counter the union thrust. The stepped-up effort comes after labor learned its lesson in earlier presidential races when lukewarm efforts by unions weakened Democratic candidates. Long a harbinger of how the rest of the country will go, Michigan is considered pivotal by both the Bush and Gore camps.
Unions have a heavy influence.
Republicans are betting, however, that the workers' response may not be quite what the unions are hoping for. Indeed, Gore almost lost the unions' endorsement to Green Party candidate Ralph Nader as a result of his backing for the North American Free Trade Agreement and expanding trade with China. We think that more than 40 percent of union members here will vote Republican in November. It's not what it used to be a few years ago. Even among the names on Joyce McFadden's UAW phone-bank list, support for Gore isn't foreordained.