Big labor plans big anti-McCain effort

The nation's major labor federation is vowing to shadow presumptive Republican nominee John McCain as part of an effort to tie him to what it sees as the failed economic policies of President Bush.

The AFL-CIO announced today that protestors will follow McCain on the campaign trail, including a town meeting this afternoon in Exeter, N.H.

In addition to the protests, the federation plans to spend its record $53.4 million grassroots mobilization campaign funds to criticizing McCain through workplace leafletting, volunteer door-knocking, telephone calls, e-mail, direct mailings and an anti-McCain website, the Associated Press reported.

"Everywhere John McCain goes in the coming months, union activists will be there to confront him on his economic positions and plans and demand that he speak to working families' concerns," Karen Ackerman, the AFL-CIO's political director, said at a news conference.

The labor federation has not endorsed either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination, but plans to aggressively support whoever eventually wins the nomination.

Republicans immediately hit back.

"The AFL-CIO's campaign against John McCain clearly demonstrates their priorities lie in attack politics as opposed to focusing on American families. Voters looking for something new will find it in John McCain’s campaign to help working families – not the AFL-CIO’s partisan attacks. Considering Senators Obama and Clinton’s frequent denunciations of special interests, they must reject the unions’ campaign against Senator McCain," said Alex Conant, spokesman for the Republican National Committee.