Back in 1992 when the triangulating Bill Clinton was running for President he created a totally contrived controversy around a hip hop artist by the name of Sister Souljah.
The very cynical Clinton and his advisers like James Carville were trying to court conservative white voters. This required them to create some distance between Clinton and the Reverend Jesse Jackson.
Jackson, a leader of the progressive wing, was then a major player in the Democratic Party.
Clinton gave a speech to Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow Coalition that attacked some lyrics in a song by hip hop artist Sister Souljah. Jackson came to Sister Souljah’s defense. Clinton and Carville got the press they wanted for those conservative white voters.
I’ve been thinking about Clinton’s Sister Souljah moment because of the move by NEA leadership to endorse Barack Obama a year and a half ahead of the election. It will come up at this summer’s NEA RA in Chicago.
I’m a delegate.
The endorsement this early is unprecedented for the NEA. It comes after two years of anti-teacher union rhetoric and actions by Obama’s Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan.
So, I keep asking myself, what has Obama done to deserve an early no-strings endorsement by the nation’s largest teachers union?
At first it seemed like a dumb idea, even from the NEA leadership’s point of view. There will obviously be strong resistance to it from the delegates. Many of the delegates will be the same folks who voted to condemn Arne Duncan and the Race to the Top at last year’s RA.
Will it help Obama if he gets the NEA endorsement over large and vocal opposition?
Only if the Obama operatives are thinking it could be their Sister Souljah moment.
Who doesn’t know that there has been a concerted campaign to attack teacher unions and portray us as defenders of the status quo and self-serving opponents of change?
The possible outcome would be an endorsement for Obama, satisfying some Democrats. And news reports of union teachers shouting no to the endorsement, creating political distance between Obama and the so-called union opponents of change.
Is that too conspiratorial a theory?
Are we being manipulated for cynical electoral purposes?
Is the NEA leadership in on it?
I guess we’ll see.
Fred Klonsky 
Answer: change for change sake is not the way. When you say yes we can, you have to include other people, Barack.
This, unfortunately, seem entirely possible & doesn’t sound conspiratorial at all.
How many alienated Democrats will it take before we get a candidate who stands for working people? Why should any teacher vote for a Democrat who chooses to follow the educational policies of GW Bush?
He fooled me once. But that’s it. I used to think the people voting for Nader were nuts. Now I think I was nuts to vote for these faux-Democrats.
The NEA has jumped the shark as a UNION, ie, as what a union IS (supposed to be), with this move. Hey, could be a sister souljah moment, could be they’re in on it… but only in that, like Weingarten – the grand dame of membership betrayal – they are too joined at the hip with a political party, ie, the Democrats.
This Dem-Union complicity complaint has typically, historically been the province of Republicans. Unfortunately, it should now be a typical gripe of those who used to vote for Democrats, believing they represented the interests of the middle class and working people (ditto for what we used to believe of our unions)…
So now I too take up the Republican cry of too much coziness between the Dems and unions, but in my case it is precisely because I am anti Republican. Barack Obama’s education policy, pushed across the nation by its fully on board Democratic party (and union sellouts) is a Republican policy.
How else could RttT have managed to change education laws in 34 states? It happened with one huge bipartisan hug and beers all around. (And lots of Weingarten assistance) The Republicans have always been where the Democrats have moved education (moved it there and beyond!). That’s how.
Thanks, NEA, for folding into the big sellout. What shall we call you, now that you are no longer a union? Just another boxcar on the neoliberal choo choo?