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Unions helped the Dems sweep the 2006 elections. Now will Dems help unions with new rules that allow them to expand their influence, putting them in a position to help the Dems even more (so that the Dems will be in an even better position to help the unions expand even further, and so on...)? Here's a Wall Street Journal commentary on John Edwards' efforts to push unionization of a meat-packing plant in North Carolina, a plant that has twice rejected unionization, via elections conducted legally by secret ballot.

Mr. Edwards...supports the union in its fight against Smithfield and he supports legislation under consideration in Congress that would make it easier to use the card check instead of an election. Mr. Edwards also recently sent a letter to Smithfield CEO Larry Pope demanding that he "protect the right of workers" to bargain collectively. He wants Mr. Pope to support the card check.

This -- his support for dispensing with secret ballot elections in the name of workers' rights -- makes Mr. Edwards one of the most pro-union presidential candidates in a long time....Over the past three years, Mr. Edwards has moved sharply to the left. Indeed, he has lashed himself to the mast of organized labor and steered hard to port. His bet is that service-worker unions will propel him to a surprise victory in the early Nevada presidential caucus, giving him a shot at beating the better-financed campaigns of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

He also feels that he has found an underserved constituency -- people displaced by the New Economy. And he is on to something. Outside of edge cities and burgeoning metro areas, the painful churning in the economy is easy to spot...

The union response has been to push for higher wages and to oppose moving or laying off workers. That has made it harder to keep manufacturing jobs....

It turns out that exercising political power through a union isn't a substitute for innovation, retraining and other steps necessary to make economies competitive. Look at the numbers. From 1997 to 2005 the 10 states with the highest rates of union membership -- which include California, New York and Michigan, among others -- had slower growth than the bottom 10 states...

As Mr. Edwards urges private-sector unionization as the best way to protect middle class jobs, he can only hope that unions are better at fulfilling electoral promises than economic ones.

My DC lawyer/lobbyist friend writes,

Each of the Democratic candidates lust for the endorsements of the unions, mostly the new ones such as SEIU and AFSCME. No hardhats there; plenty of brooms and bureaucrats. Think of the bright, helpful folks at your DMV.

But isn't organized labor failing to organize labor? No, problem! "Card Check" to the rescue. That's the new proposal to do away with the requirements that unions win through a secret ballot -- just sign a card when the union reps corner you. Or else.

John Edwards wants to prove himself to his new masters -- so much so that he wants to turn prosperous North Carolina into dying Michigan. (Meanwhile, in Michigan, the locals now worry that their taxes support a world class university only to lose nearly all the graduates to other states.)

Note that Edward's ploy is aimed at SEIU workers in Nevada. The plant and its employees in NC is just part of the backdrop.

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