The Daily Background
| AFSCME lobs another direct mail hit piece at Obama [with photos]
by Arlen Parsa
AFSCME has a new misleading negative direct mail piece out in New Hampshire, once again criticizing Barack Obama’s health care plan as a “band aid solution” to America’s health care crisis.
This, after two Harvard professors slammed AFSCME for spreading “factually inaccurate information” about Obama’s plan.
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“Obama is too timid to lead the way for universal health care,” the piece claims, citing John Edwards. AFSCME, which has actually endorsed Hillary Clinton, has recently come under substantial criticism for their original mail piece which also included Edwards’ quote. Instead of apologizing however, they are now sending out this second mailer.
Essential Estrogen wrote about the earlier AFSCME hit piece:
The mailing has also created a rift within the ranks of AFSCME. Some Illinois and Iowa members, angry over the mailing and what they view as an attack that goes against AFSCME’s own statements, spent a portion of their afternoon on a conference call on behalf of the Obama campaign.
“I’m aware — have seen and was dismayed to see it — the direct mail piece that international union sent out under an independent expenditure that gives one the impression that AFSCME supports the mandates that are in Sen. Clinton’s plan,” said Henry Bayer, executive director of AFSCME Council 31 in Illinois (a local that has endorsed Obama). “Let me be clear: the opposite is true. We’ve always opposed individual mandates.”
The angry members pointed to an AFSCME national health care resolution passed earlier this year that declared individual mandates are “incompatible” with the principles and interests of the membership. It is the lack of a mandate that the questionable flier refers to as a “band-aid solution.” In addition, AFSCME President Gerald McEntee, a long-time friend and supporter of both Bill and Hillary Clinton, denounced mandates during Congressional testimony last spring, stating they would force families to pay more for their policies.
“[The mailing sent by international] is a desperate attempt to attack [Obama] and on unfounded reasons,” said Carter Woodruff, former Iowa secretary-treasurer of Iowa AFSCME and a member of Local 3861.
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The Daily Background received the second AFSCME piece on Saturday in New Hampshire. AFSCME is said to be spending tens of thousands of dollars on the full color oversize direct mail pieces.
Earlier
Clinton’s dirty little anti-Obama AFSCME mailer [with photos]
The experts said:
December 28, 2007
“The AFSCME website contains factually inaccurate information concerning Barack Obama’s health care proposal and misrepresents the likely effects of his plan to provide health care coverage for all Americans. Obama’s proposal is the most comprehensive and aggressive of any candidate running for President, Democrat or Republican. In this critical period, Americans should be getting the straight facts about their candidates’ health care positions, not misleading attacks that obscure the reality that all Democratic candidates are united in their commitment to protecting all Americans against the cost of illness.”
David Blumenthal, physician and Samuel O. Thier Professor of Medicine and Professor of Health Policy at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School
David Cutler, Otto Eckstein Professor of Applied Economics at Harvard University
Water mark!!
[…] and outright false information about Barack Obama’s health care plan– see here and here), is now attempting to scare voters into voting for […]