Lie Down With Dogs, Get Up With Four Percent Raises Without An Endorsement

DC37 has 300,000 members, many of which (still) vote in New York City. Howard Wolfson is the go-to guy for the most egregious campaign bullshit:

In 2005, the union broke with its tradition of endorsing Democrats and backed Mr. Bloomberg, then a Republican, privately arguing that the mayor was likely to trounce a weak field of Democratic candidates.

Many expected the district council to do the same this time, especially since Mr. Bloomberg appears to be steamrolling toward re-election and granted DC 37’s workers back-to-back 4 percent raises last fall, despite the economic crisis.

. . .

In a statement, Howard Wolfson, a spokesman for Mr. Bloomberg’s campaign, said: “DC 37 opposes pension reform, mayoral control of schools, and wants the city to hire more employees, even in a time of fiscal crisis. This is their job, so we understand their position. But these are clearly not things that the mayor could agree to, and so it’s not surprising that they would endorse Mr. Thompson.”

“The real question,” he added, “is what promises Mr. Thompson made them and how much his promises will cost taxpayers.”

Wolfson, of course, is the post-modern political operative: Basically he’s telegraphing to us, “If I were being paid by Democrats, as has been the case for my entire career, I would have simply substituted ‘Bloomberg’ for ‘Thompson’ and had the same message.” It’s brilliant, in fact.