White House official: Organized labor just flushed $10 million...down the toilet

In a stunning blow to organized labor, Arkansas Senator Blanche Lincoln narrowly survived Tuesday's primary runoff against Lieutenant Governor Bill Halter.  The estimable Michael Barone summed up his perspective on that contest and others in a late-night post at The Washington Examiner (via Lucianne.com):

Blanche Lincoln’s (narrow) victory leaves the unions’ strategy in ruins. They can’t credibly threaten any Democratic incumbent who opposes card check with political defeat. Some, in states less anti-union than Arkansas, might be vulnerable to a challenge like Halter’s; but others won’t. And in some states or districts there won’t be an opportunistic challenger like Halter willing to go along with the strategy and well enough established to be a serious primary challenger. Give the unions credit for daring, and for putting their money (or the money of their members) on the line. They’re playing for high stakes—for the ability to plunder the private sector for dues money as they have successfully plundered the public sector (i.e., taxpayers) for dues money in states with strong public employee unions like New York, New Jersey and California. They just came up a little bit short.

Obviously this is a case of a divergence of interest between the unions (which want to deter any Democrat from opposing card check) and the Obama administration political strategists (who want to maximize the number of Democrats elected no matter what their position on substantive issues). Which brings to mind the old saying about honor among thieves. When you’re trying, in different ways, to plunder a once productive private sector economy, you won’t always agree on how to do so. As you watch the videotape of Blanche Lincoln’s rather shrewd victory speech, you might want to keep that in mind.

Ben Smith at Politico got this unsolicited scoop from the White House:

A senior White House official just called me with a very pointed message for the administration's sometime allies in organized labor, who invested heavily in beating Blanche Lincoln, Obama's candidate, in Arkansas.

"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."