by Seth Michaels, Oct 31, 2008

In the battle to send Barack Obama and Joe Biden to the White House, few factors are more critical than a strong union turnout in the swing state of Ohio.

Today in Kettering, Ohio, in the competitive Dayton area, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney introduced Biden at a rally with 1,500 enthusiastic supporters. Sweeney is one of many labor leaders making sure there’s a strong turnout among union members on Tuesday.

Ohio is at the center of this election in many ways. Closely fought in 2004, the state has borne heavy costs from the Bush-McCain economic agenda. Bad trade deals, the housing crisis and unemployment have hit Ohio’s working families particularly hard—the jobless rate in the state hit a 15-year high of 7.2 percent over the summer and has climbed to 7.4 percent in recent months.

Speaking to the crowd in Kettering today, Sweeney said Obama and Biden can turn our economy around and make it work again, and that Ohio voters could be the ones to make the difference.

John McCain thought he could take Ohio for granted, but we knew that wasn’t true.

We knew all along that the working families who put [Gov.] Ted Strickland in the State Capitol, and Sherrod Brown in the United States Senate would put Barack Obama and Joe Biden in the White House, and that’s exactly what we’re doing—right, Ohio?

Sweeney said the union efforts of past months in Ohio were impressive, but volunteers needed to increase their efforts in the final days.

Biden said Obama will be a leader who can change the direction of the country from the course Bush and McCain have set it on.

Folks, I have never seen a time when so many Americans have been knocked down with so little regard on the part of the government for their plight. And folks, it’s time. It’s time to get up, together, to bring the change we need to the country we love so much.

The real question is, who is going to make you better off four years from now than you are today? And ladies and gentlemen, that answer is Barack Obama.

Biden will be in Ohio through tomorrow. Union volunteers around the state will be phone banking and walking door to door walk through Election Day.

____________________________

Paid for by the AFL-CIO Committee on Political Education Political Contributions Committee, www.aflcio.org, and not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee.

Print This Article | E-Mail This Article |Comments (1)