Chris Stirewalt already noted this in his “Morning Must Reads,” but after Blanche Lincoln won her primary last night in spite of heavy union backing for her opponent, the White House made it known that it was none too pleased with organized labor’s decision throw their weight around in that particular race:
“Organized labor just flushed $10 million of their members’ money down the toilet on a pointless exercise,” the official said. “If even half that total had been well-targeted and applied in key House races across this country, that could have made a real difference in November.”
This morning, Ben Smith notes the AFL-CIO brushed back the White house criticism:
“If that’s their take on this, then they severely misread how the electorate feels and how we’re running our political program. When we say we’re only going to support elected officials who support our issues,” said AFL-CIO spokesman Eddie Vale. “When they say we should have targeted our money among some key house races among Blue Dog Democrats — that ain’t happening.”
The Huffington Post’s Sam Stein wonders on his twitter feed if this tension isn’t the result of Andy Stern’s departure from the SEIU. Stern had extensive ties to the White House — White House political director Patrick Gaspard was formerly a top lobbyist for the SEIU and Stern was plugged into Chicago politics long before Obama got elected. Stern “was primary conduit btw adm and unions,” notes Stein.
