In case you were wondering what a ground game looks like, Greg Sargent has some numbers on the AFL-CIO's effort on Issue 2 in Ohio:
- 4.1 million worksite fliers
- Over 3,000 worksites leafletted
- 1,101,751 doors knocked
- 825,000 pieces of local union mail
- 409,318 tele-town hall participants.
And that’s not even including today’s get-out-the-vote activities.
Unions really do need a win here, both for the tangible reason that they don't want to see their members lose collective bargaining rights and the unions materially weakened and for reasons of narrative and momentum. Stopping Issue 2 wouldn't be a turnaround that would suddenly make everything peachy for unions and workers in this country. But a resounding no vote by the people of Ohio would, as Sargent writes, "hopefully send an important message about the national mood heading into 2012. It will perhaps clarify that voters want genuine shared sacrifice, not the brand of right-wing fiscal hawkery that’s better understood as thinly disguised class warfare from the top down[.]"
Unions—and progressives more generally—need to find a way to stop measuring their fights in the states by the bad stuff that failed to pass and go on the offense and move the ball forward somewhere, somehow. With Ohio Gov. John Kasich's approvals in the toilet, defeating Issue 2 would at least show that there's a penalty for overreach.
Find a polling place to go vote no on Issue 2.