Joe Biden And Hilda Solis Cheer Ohio Workers, Admonish Kasich

WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration has tread lightly with regards to getting involved in the collective bargaining battles being waged largely on the state level. When Ohio was considering the repeal of Gov. John Kasich's SB 5, which curbed collective bargaining rights for all public workers, the administration declined to weigh in, only to later affirm that the president opposed the legislation.

Obama's reelection team is taking a different approach. In a stop in Euclid, Ohio, Vice President Joseph Biden gave his full-throated endorsement to the unions who had helped repeal SB 5.

"Folks, you fired the first shot,” he said, according to the Cleveland Plain Dealer. “It’s not about Barack Obama. It’s not about Joe Biden. It’s about whether middle-class people are going to be put back in the saddle again – because you are the people who make this country move.”

Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, meanwhile, gave Kasich a little ribbing.

“How dare he?” she asked, in reference to the governor's decision to target the collective bargaining rights of police officers and firefighters in addition to other public workers -- a reach that other Republican governors chose not to make.

Ohio, of course, plays a special role in the Obama campaign's political calculus. That Biden and Solis were sent there to campaign so soon after SB 5's repeal, and that they jumped at the chance to involve the unpopular Kasich in their pitch to voters, says something about how the campaign views its chances in the state.

Top aides to the campaign have long argued that the president's chances in the all-important swing state aren't necessarily as bad as his poll numbers would suggest, due to the national and statewide backlash against Republican policy and the even lower approval ratings of the governor.

Comments

[Hugebrass]

12:11 PM on 11/17/2011

Could Joe Biden possibly be more entertaining?

http://www.politico.com/politico44/perm/1111/biden_hidin_e42e6930-e288-47d8-9a86-b6a3cca55b8a.html

I think back to the Dan Quayle days when the Libs were merciless to him. Joe makes Dan look like a genius, yet Joe gets a pass - almost daily.

[AZDave2]

08:37 AM on 11/17/2011

Union members, public sector workers including police, firemen, teachers, nurses etc are targets of the Republican Governors and the Republican party. Why? They want to get their hands on their pensions! Period! The Congress passed laws that allowed private companies to kill pensions and create give aways to wall street called 401K's. Now they want to do the same thing with public pensions and union pensions. Did anyone actually succeed in creating a sound retirement through a 401K. Hmmm? If you had one you lost it in 1984, 1992, 2001, and 2008. What are you left with? Pennies on the dollar? Where did it go? Wall Street bonuses!

[camelias and sweet tea]

08:21 AM on 11/17/2011

Another gun reference...does it ever end with this people...

[ronp121]

07:26 AM on 11/17/2011

Kasich won his election not because of ability or wanting to help a state in trouble. He won because of pure and simple laziness on the part of the democrats that thought a lesson was to be learned by not getting out to vote. They the democrats were right the lesson was learned and because of that lesson we now have recalls, the OWS movement, a do nothing congress, and those lazy democrats that didn't vote before are working their butts off trying to get things back to some normalcy. Maybe next time after seeing what happens when you don't cast that vote those lines at the polls will be full.

[StopTeaGOP]

05:43 AM on 11/17/2011

Iti's mind boggling to see voters electing the politicians who work against the working class. The entire republican party is quite corrupt and yet ideology-driven voters continue electing those who are their personal interest. Unless the voters are educated how to choose who will represent them, the viscous cycle will continue.

[Jesster]

01:25 PM on 11/17/2011

In large part, the acelerated decline of our country is directly related to the degree of our uneducated population. Ignorant/uneducated people are much easier to manipulate and yes, brainwash (let's call it what it is for a change.)

Educated people would never vote against their own best interests the way they do in this country -nor would they be so fearful and hate-filled and in constant need of a scapegoat...

One thing for certain is that (with the possible exception of Huntsman and MAYBE Romney) everyone on that GOP/TP stage would love to eliminate the Dept of Education asap.

[luapmi2]

04:04 AM on 11/17/2011

Obama is ineffectual, NOT stupid. He has been paying back his union buddies IN SPADES but most people aren't paying attention.

Look at the auto bailouts.....union members lost nothing while salaried people lost boatloads. We lost healthcare in retirement, pensions cut by 70%, etc. The difference in treatment was SO OUTRAGEOUS and EXTREME that even the President of the UAW wrote President Obama to show support of the abused salary employees. Obama didn't do anything.

Look at his incessant push for "jobs." In case you haven't noticed, "jobs" now means goodies for teacher's unions and construction unions.

You have to have a big toothy grin and be willing to knife people in the back while shaking their hand to be President. Obama has all the qualifications.

[marine3314]

06:38 AM on 11/17/2011

I agree Obama is a backstabber. But if he hadn't bailed out the car industry it would have dried up and blown away by now. The Republicans criticize Obama for doing so and called it socialism. Vote Republican next time and watch your job disappear.

[luapmi2]

06:56 AM on 11/17/2011

I work in the auto industry. Obama was the President, and 73 of 76 engineers in my department were fired. So explain where Obama is doing anything but protecting his union buddies.

Equal protection under the law is a fallacy

[Osusuki]

08:24 AM on 11/17/2011

Your analysis of the event is very "If dog, then rabbit." President Obama is in no way to blame for whatever actions corporate management in the auto industry took to improve their bottom line, up to and including their treatment of salaried employees. Conservative Republicans from Ronald Reagan to George W. Bush eroded the rights of all classes of employees to the point where the only thing standing between any employee and the axe is his union--if he has one. Rather than blaming Mr. Obama, or the unions, for the unfair treatment you experienced, you should be grateful to the President of the UAW for going to bat for you, whether it was effective or not. You want to blame someone, point your ire at the upper management and executive levels of the industry. Beyond that, point your ire at the Wall Street goons who crashed the economy, made the bottom drop out of demand for new products, and directly caused your misfortune.

[luapmi2]

08:50 AM on 11/17/2011

WRONG....Geitner, at Obama's directive, insisted that the salaried staff get screwed.

Open your eyes man. Blame....GM and Chrysler should have disappeared from the face of the earth.

Just watch, because of the bailout, nothing was learned by the industry leaders.

[jt2]

01:55 AM on 11/17/2011

Of course Kasich will be voted out of office in Ohio. He will be voted out by the voters who no longer have jobs at the steel mills in Youngstown, the rubber shops in Akron, at Hoover in Canton. Why do you think Ohio is part of the rust belt ? But Trumka lives high on the hog, doesn't he?

[si1]

10:51 PM on 11/16/2011

Kasich is on the road to perdition - just marking time now until the end game - he should go back to Lehman Brothers - since they are out of business - he would make an excellent manager

[Joan Stoykovich Nelson]

10:11 PM on 11/16/2011

The people have spoken and hung on to their collective bargaining rights. Big Government, Big Labor Unions stick out like a sore thumb in this recession/depression economy. Less people working for more money does not help the outrageous number of unemployed Americans going to bed hungry night after night. Over 2 million Americans are in a horrible depression.

[Novellus]

03:12 AM on 11/17/2011

Now.. you can pull your head out of the sand, and look at the American reality. Unions are not what got us here.. Wall Street is...

[luapmi2]

04:09 AM on 11/17/2011

Yeah, those nasty Wall St. types required companies to be profitable. So the even-more-evil CEO's stepped up and lopped-off the waste.

Damn them!

[rovezaleeker]

06:09 PM on 11/16/2011

Come to Wisconsin, Joe. We would welcome the Labor Secretary as well. The posts by WI Patriot do not represent what is going on in my neck of the woods here in Wisconsin. We know that Walker is a lap dog of the corporate Kook brothers. We know that Walker is trying to give them our power plants. We know that Walker is trying to give them all public sector jobs. We know Walker is trying to privatize our schools and turn them over to his corporate buddy donors. We know that Walker has got to be shown the door. It's not the unions. It's Walker. We know that and it doesn't matter how many Rovian spinners there are out there trying to muddy the issues. We are proud of our Ohio brothers and sisters and we will succeed in out efforts to follow them and get rid of the trash that lied their way into offices that they do not belong in from Green Bay to LaCrosse and from Superior to Beloit.

[gibraltar]

04:36 PM on 11/16/2011

Our Despot Koch, Amway, Americans for properity, Alec, Students First, Governor Snyder and his pit crew. Have gutted the rights of teachers. in Michigan Just like the rest of the Koch Guvs in Wisconsin Florida and Ohio. they all came in with the same agenda. Give everything to the rich friends then claim a budget crisis. and soak the poor and middle class .I just read that a beloved teacher in a nearby school was retiring because with the new rules imposed by her school district. She was working 81 hours a week. With class sizes too big to give an adequate education to the kids she loves. It isn't right but when instead of sweeping trash like this out the door you sweep them into office these kinds of things happen!

[TexianLife]

04:10 PM on 11/16/2011

Kasich will be voted out of office when he comes up for re-election.

[Eagleman]

04:08 PM on 11/16/2011

>> Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, meanwhile, gave Kasich a little ribbing.

Shake down ?

[Z1783A]

06:52 PM on 11/16/2011

What Shakedown? You seeing things that are not there.

[SageFire]

09:38 PM on 11/16/2011

We could only hope!!

[GoDems2012]

02:58 PM on 11/16/2011

I think if the Prez would have weighed in early on OH when he hadn't in WI, it would have smelled rotten. Gotta be consistent. You either get involved with every state with the same level of intensity or you don't. It's only fair to be consistent.

[edwcorey]

02:46 PM on 11/16/2011

"The Obama administration has tread lightly"

The past tense and past participle of "tread" is trod. Get some learning or a proofreader.

[infinitivesplit]

09:16 PM on 11/16/2011

Actually what we use as past tense and past participles changes quite rapidly, particularly with words that are rarely used in the past tense. It's really not a big deal - go back and study the history of any language - there is really only one constant, language changes. If it didn't you would be saying that "You is wrong" would be the correct conjugation of the 'be' verb when speaking to one person.