The American Spectator

p> CHILD LABOR br> Much was made over the weekend during President Bush’s tour through Ohio of signs held up along roadways — mostly by children — criticizing Bush for failing to bring jobs back to the state. Ohio continues to lag behind the rest of the country in job growth. But many of those signs were painted in Cleveland and Cincinnati and delivered by AFL-CIO workers paid for by organized labor as a kind of guerrilla protest program that is trailing the President wherever he goes. /p>

“If its jobs in Ohio, it will be lack of health insurance in Michigan or Illinois,” says an AFL-CIO organizer in New York. “We’ve got it all covered. Everywhere he goes it will look like local protest and color. The Republicans like to brag about their grassroots organization. But they don’t have anything on us.”

Many of the “local” protests are being put in place by members of New York’s Service Employee International Union local based in Manhattan. That local sent out more than 300 of its members across the country three months ago to begin organizing anti-Bush, pro-Democratic Party programming in about 15 swing states. It is those states where both Bush and John Kerry will be traveling the most. Those SEIU employees are garnering a full salary, plus benefits, thanks to New York contracts that allow union members to take extended leave without pay, but with employment protection. The union itself is paying the workers’ salaries.

Bush ran into silent protests outside Cleveland and throughout some of the smaller towns that were part of his announced itineraries. Reporters on the busses didn’t bother to ask those holding signs about their backgrounds, instead simply reported that the signs reflected disenchantment with the Bush administration’s economic policies.

Meanwhile, Kerry was seeing different “handmade” signs along his bus route in Ohio on Saturday. In some cases, the signs featured small AFL-CIO flags being waved nearby by union members.

It’s a frustrating situation for Republicans, as they simply don’t have the enough support among organized labor to keep up with the AFL-CIO juggernaut that in essence has gambled its very existence on this election cycle. Privately, organized labor leaders will tell reporters and supporters alike that they believe a second Bush term will ensure the demise of organized labor as a political force in the United States.

“When all of this is done, whether Kerry wins or loses, members of our unions are going to be shocked at how much we spent on campaigns and politics this year,” says the union organizer in New York. “People may go to jail over all of this. We’re putting that much on the line right now for Kerry.”

p> BOSTON TEAR PARTY br> The numbers won’t be in a for few more weeks, but Boston ended up taking a bath on the Democratic Convention, according to an elected official in Cambridge, Massachusetts. “The whole region got soaked,” he says. ” Terry McAuliffe and