Unions Spend Billions and More on Campaigns

Surprise, surprise (not really). A new report (from the Wall Street Journal) shows that unions are spending more on elections and lobbying than once thought, on Democratic candidates. Why this is a news story is more shocking than the fact its self. It has been apparent for years that unions are always throwing money at a candidate or a political position, and trying to control the vote of their members by doing so. Mainly because of promises that they may benefit from, or just the fact they are for one party over the other because of the benefits.

The money spent is not just at the national level, but also state and local. The biggest story out of this is probably the pull unions have with swaying the vote, and the fact that it is so hypocritical for the left to yell about Republicans campaign funds when the Democrats have been receiving much more from other businesses, unions, private donors, and so on for years.

Unions have a huge hold on their members. Of course, a member could pretend that they would vote for one candidate just to make the union happy but vote for the other. The unions may not really control their members so much as influence them.

As for the hypocrisy of the money, it is not a shocker. Everyone, or at least everyone with common sense, knows that the money flows in from all sorts of places for candidates. For a while Democrats have said that private donors should be made public, but when Obama's campaign did that a few weeks ago, it ended up hurting some of Romney's donors and causing them to be placed so much in the public eye that they received a lot of backlash for the candidate of their choice. If the Romney campaign had done that to Obama's donors, it would have been a National crisis. Of course, everyone knows who gives to Obama, Hollywood and unions (to mention two), two very influential sources. The hypocrisy comes in the fact that Democrats constantly get up in arms over big spending on campaign, when they are the biggest spenders and control addicts.

So, as it's always been known, Dems can get billions and get away with it but if the Republicans get millions, then it's just too much being spent on the election. As for those unions supporting candidates that their members may not necessarily support, go ahead and thank them for continuing to chip in to your agenda.