Reply #4: Sure -- labor candidates, whom I supported, were treated like crap. [View All]

The conventions I've been to are full of retirees and people who can afford to take time off and/or travel. It's difficult to get tradespeople, lower-middle-class and middle-class people, and other prime labor supporters to conventions.

In discussions about getting people to run, suggestions of people who were actual union members were routinely greeted with reluctance because of where they might stand on some things -- sometimes they were concerns with genuine grounds (such as a jobs vs. environment thing), sometimes it was almost an unnamed class issue. It became frustrating to me to listen to candidates brag about how their father or grandpappy was in a union, so that gave them some kind of bona fides, but when a union member talked about his or her membership, it was seen as almost a taint, sometimes.

It's hard for me to put my finger on it, or go into huge details without giving away personal information. It was rarely blatant, but the subtlety itself was annoying and alarming, and frustrating. It's one of the main reasons I drifted away from party politics after several years in leadership positions and as a delegate to the state.