It's always your friends who leave you saddest

by: Eric B.

Sat Aug 04, 2012 at 09:36:50 AM EDT

Why did the conservative cross the road? Because he didn't assume he'd get sold out by his leaders when he got to the other side.

Also in 2009, Dewey continued work for another industry group often at odds with labor, the Private Equity Council, a lobbying group for major private equity firms that was co-founded by Bain Capital. According to records filed with the Senate, the council spent much of that year influencing Congress on tax and pension issues, but also on matters relating to financial reform. Tax returns obtained by In These Times confirm that Dewey was compensated with a $188,544 contract.

...snip...

The firm continues to nurture a financial relationship with organized labor. Last December, Dewey served on the host committee for a Working America fundraiser honoring former AFSCME President Gerry McEntee. In May, Jill Alper, Dewey's head of campaigns, was named the chief strategist of the Protect Our Jobs Campaign, which is seeking to enshrine collective bargaining rights in the Michigan state Constitution. The total cost of the campaign is expected to exceed $10 million, according to the Detroit Free Press.

A few things to note:

1. The article runs high with speculation and innuendo based on tax returns and guilt by association -- the conduct of a company owned by our owner is our conduct. It also seems to be based on the idea that people at a public relations firm work on, or at least have knowledge of, campaigns others are working on. It's been my experience that this isn't even the case at very small shops.

2. Jill Alper, if my information (mostly from memory) is correct, was a key part of one of Jennifer Granholm's campaigns.  The Protect Our Jobs campaign is probably the most important question on the ballot this year, and as an integral part of a past successful statewide campaign, Alper brings a unique skillset to the job (of course, a lot has changed since Granholm won a statewide race, so there is that).

3. In the past, Dewey Square has sponsored this website. Also, Jill Alper once sent me an e-mail suggesting that if we're ever in the same town at the same time that we ought to sit down for a cup of coffee. 

That said, the underlying point of the article identifies what is a very serious, ongoing problem among Democrats and progressives/liberals/etc... It's related to Bill Clinton's triangulation and Jennifer Granholm's selling out of her supporters whenever a dark cloud hovered above her office door. The same thinking that gets you elected leaders who refuse to take hard stands on behalf of constituencies gets you public "Democratic" public relations firms who will take both union money and money from the companies that want to erode worker rights.

Even if Dewey Square's dealings with private equity don't have a direct impact on individual campaigns, when the connection is made public -- and it invariably does -- it demoralizes people, who think they're working for someone who's just going to sell them out in the end. It's not terribly unlike the Battle of Stirling Bridge, as depicted in Braveheart (as opposed to the actual battle) in which the Scotsmen start to suspect that they're risking life and limb just so the nobels can negotiate a few more herds of sheep from the English. The problem is there's no anti-Semite with his face painted blue to show up and rally support for a concept of nation that wouldn't exist for another few hundred years.

I have no idea whether this is true for the Protect Our Jobs campaign. On the other hand, I don't normally read In These Times. Someone else was kind enough to alert me to this article, which suggests that there is some of this going on. There is an enthusiasm gap between progressives and conservatives, who know their elites won't capitulate to the enemy (we call this compromise), and at the root of it is the belief that Democrats are always looking to cut a deal and leave their people high and dry. The practical impact for this can be found in the comment that one motivated volunteer is worth 10 people doing it for the cash.