AFL-CIO Cutting Their Obama Campaign Donations

The AFL-CIO has told USA News and World Report  that it's moving money from political candidates even though its right in the middle of election season. This represents another blow to the Obama campaign which is already way behind its fundraising goals. The labor union says this shift was planned for a long time and has nothing to do with the fact that Barack Obama was too busy to visit Wisconsin during the recall battle.

"We wanted to start investing our funds in our own infrastructure and advocacy," AFL-CIO spokesman Josh Goldstein told Whispers. "There will be less contributions to candidates," including President Obama.

While there were "a lot of different opinions" about whether Obama should have gone to Wisconsin, according to Goldstein, "this is not a slight at the president."

The AFL-CIO has been at odds with the president before Wisconsin on issues such as the public health insurance option and renewing the Bush tax cuts.

The shift in funding is significant due to the federation's role in past presidential campaigns, where the AFL-CIO built up a massive political structure in the months leading up the election, including extensive "Get Out The Vote" efforts, as well as financial contributions.

This time around, Goldstein says, the federation wants to build a more long-lasting structure, giving "different kinds of support to different candidates."

Goldstein clarifies that in the new deployment of funds, "Some candidates will get more, some less, some the same -- but overall we'll be focused more on spending resources to build our own structure [that] works for working people instead of others' own structures."

Union President and thug Richard Trumka threatened a move like this:

In a May speech at the National Press Club, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka threatened to reduce support for the Democratic party and launch "an independent labor movement" if Democrats didn't more fully support the union agenda.

"We will change the way we spend, the way we do things and the way we function that creates power for workers," Trumka said, according to the Associated Press.

AFL-CIO donated $1.2 million to Democrats in 2008, and $900,000 in 2010, according to the Christian Post. It is unclear how much will be donated in 2012.

Remember when the Obama campaign set a fundraising goal of a billion dollars? It is now more likely that I will wake  up with a full head of hair than the campaign raising a billion--especially with all of the reports of Democrats running away from the POTUS as fast as they can.