Word: afl
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
PHOENIX: Still smarting after Democratic setbacks in the 1994 mid-term elections, union leaders unleashed a massive war chest to avoid a repeat in 1996. For the past year, the AFL-CIO has waged a $35 million campaign against vulnerable GOP freshmen and the Republican positions on Medicare, education and the minimum wage. At the top of the union's target list is Arizona's 6th District, which stretches from the Phoenix suburbs north to the Utah border. Representative J.D. Hayworth, a former college football player and sportscaster, is locked in a tight race with Steve Owens, a former aide...
This is a race where big guns are flying in for both sides. The AFL-CIO has been bombarding the district with ads attacking Riggs as a Friend of Newt, who has about the same local approval ratings as Dracula. Two weeks ago, the National Republican Congressional Committee finally struck back with ads saying the unions were trying to buy the election...
...AFL-CIO divided its record-shattering $35 million war chest into $20 million for radio and TV ads and $15 million for field operations. Most of the spending is focused on the few dozen districts where Republicans have the most tenuous hold on their seats. In the final weeks before the election, the union will broadcast a daunting $8 million barrage of attack ads disguised as video voter guides on issues like education and Medicare...
...Republican Party has reacted with alarm to the left's counterattack. It has sued the AFL-CIO to stop its ads, though nothing will be resolved until after the elections. It has unleashed millions of dollars' worth of its own commercials that accuse the unions of trying to buy control of the House. The G.O.P. hopes to create a backlash against what one of its ads derides as "Big Labor bosses, Big Money, big lies, big liberals." Freshmen are repeating the line like a mantra in their stump speeches...
Meanwhile, in Professor Bruno's hometown, the left seems to have the upper hand. The AFL-CIO has set up a phone bank in a union hall to mobilize hundreds of get-out-the-vote volunteers. Last week the organization suggested just how effective it can be. Of the 14,000 cheering Clintonites who attended a rally for the President at the Portland Sea Dogs' stadium last Monday night, 7,000 were recruited union members and their families. In 1994, Longley won his seat by about 9,900 votes...