Experts Expound

“Meg Whitman vs. the nurses: Who wins here? Does she successfully drive a wedge between the nurses and their leadership, or does spanking nurses backfire with voters?”

Ask the governor.

As John Burton once said, everybody likes nurses. This is going to backfire. Whitman’s wounds will need to be bandaged, and the nurses won’t be there to help.

Too early to tell. No other candidate has ever had the unlimited resources to try such hair-splitting, so there is no real precedent for this sort of ploy. But the Whitman campaign has to be careful that they don’t just come off as union bashers.

Well, I just read that she’s for “more funding for nurse training and more financial aid for those who want to become nurses.” Which, since she wants to fire 40,000 nurses and other workers, makes absolutely no sense. Nurses are smart people, not ignorant hayseeds. It backfires, big time.

Yes, it will work for Whitman, if she goes after the ivory tower CNA bosses who long ago traded public service for partisan politics, and not the working-class nurses who do real,  actual healthcare work.

I wouldn’t focus too heavily on attacking the nurses or trying to divide the rank-and-file from the leadership…

No reform-minded elected official should ever pass up a chance to increase the growing distance between selfish tone-deaf uncomprimising union bosses making $300,000 a year and the more moderate honorable rank-and-file members who don’t.

A wedge, no. Does she show the union leadership to be thugs worthy of becoming, say, insurance industry-lobbyists? Yes. By November, the nurses’ dues money will be spent by the leadership supporting Brown and the nurses’ votes will be split.

Nobody is paying attention except insiders but CNA’s radical leadership has finally met its match.

Whitman is smart.  She is inviting them to the table and making this a great issue.

Meg is making a mistake… Nurse Nancy and the gang at CNA are nutsy, unrelenting and effective… Meg is gonna get a shot up her arse.
Voters don’t care, but poking union leadership in the eye rarely ends well.

Andrew Acosta, A.G. Block, Mark Bogetich, Barry Brokaw, Morgan Crinklaw, J Dale Debber, Peter DeMarco, Mike Donovan, Jim Evans, Kathy Fairbanks, Jeff Fuller, Rex Frazier, Ken Gibson, Evan Goldberg, Deborah Gonzalez, Sandy Harrison, Bob Hertzberg, Jason Kinney, Greg Lucas, Mike Madrid, Nicole Mahrt, Steve Maviglio,  Adam Mendelsohn, Barbara O’Connor, Bill Packer, Kassy Perry, Jack Pitney, Adam Probolsky, Tony Quinn, Matt Rexroad, Matt Ross, Roger Salazar, Dan Schnur, Will Shuck, Ralph Simoni, Sam Sorich, Ray Sotero, Garry South,