Unions: Obama 'gays in military' moment?

[Omaha Steve]

http://money.cnn.com/2008/12/19/magazines/fortune/card_check.fortune/index.htm?postversion=2008122113

Obama the campaigner promised labor he'd support a bill to make unionizing easier. But business is opposed and the GOP hopes it has found an issue to seize on.
By Nina Easton, Washington editor
Last Updated: December 21, 2008: 1:58 PM ET

WASHINGTON, D.C. (Fortune) -- Will he, or won't he dare? That was the question that consumed an otherwise social luncheon of Republican women at the White House last week.

The "he" was President-elect Obama and the subject was "card check," a union organizing tool that is already igniting the business community in a virulent and well-funded campaign to stop it.

Obama strongly supported a union-backed card-check bill during the campaign, as does his choice for Labor Secretary, Hilda Solis. So his intentions should be clear. Except for one thing: Since his election, Obama has gone out of his way to make peace with the business community -- in the choices for his economic team, in suggesting he won't immediately repeal the Bush tax cuts.

Opening a bloody war with business over card check could sap all that good will.

Already, card-check opponents are warning that this could become the new president's gays-in-the-military moment, an early and costly stumble by a neophyte President Clinton similarly fulfilling a campaign promise without fully appreciating the fierce opposition it would stoke.

That may be wishful thinking. But Republican leaders are already counting on the issue as a badly needed motivator for their down-and-out ranks. "It certainly should help us put our coalition back together," House GOP leader John Boehner told Fortune. "This will affect every business in the country."

FULL story at link.