I'm increasingly fascinated by the number of prominent Democratic consultants who take jobs working against labor unions. Chris Lehane is only the latest example -- before him, there was Hillary Clinton's chief strategist, Mark Penn, who runs a company with a whole unionbusting division. And Penn's partner, Doug Schoen, does work for Pharma. And on, and on. This sort of thing would be unimaginable on the Republican side. Try to conceive of Rudy Giuliani hiring an adviser who previously worked for the Secularist Alliance of America, helping them concoct strategies to blunt the recruiting drives of evangelist churches. That guy wouldn't last a day, and afterwards, Giuliani's campaign wouldn't last a week. But on the Democratic side, there are no consequences. The unions don't refuse to support candidates whose consultants work against their organizing drives. The liberal advocacy groups don't compile dossiers and web sites detailing the clients and histories of the party's most disreputable hired guns. There's nothing. And so the consultants continue on their merry way, taking work from any organization, no matter how loathsome, willing to give it to them, assuring their Democratic clients that though Pharma is paying them huge sums of money and they're regularly lunching with and getting to know the organization's executives, their advice in these matters is in no way compromised or influenced. And the Democrats, so far as I can tell, believe them. It's astonishing. Update: Neil gets this right. "Candidates do so many symbolic things to show their support for unions," he writes. "Using union-label campaign buttons and other supplies, for instance. But when it comes to things that are really important, like whether the people running your campaign are committed to the goals of the union movement, people feel free to mess around."
