Campaign Strategy: hide Mulgrew

Unity has a new campaign strategy. They just sent out 60,000 flyers to teachers. I bet they sent another 70,000 to functional members. Who knows what they sent to retirees.

So 60, or 130 or 200 thousand glossy flyers to United Federation of Teachers members. And you know who’s mug was missing? Mulgrew’s. His name’s not on there, at least on the teacher ones.

I mean, it’s not a surprise they won’t let him debate. If he had a huge lead a debate costs nothing, makes you look open, confident. But this election they are shaky, and not confident in his performance when he doesn’t control the chair.

But leaving his grin off tens of thousands of leaflets?

There’s some professionalism to Unity’s campaign this time. They branded (“we do the work” they say. That’s worth a deeper dive, because much of the work Unity members do is because they have jobs they got in return for being loyal Unity members – jobs that are not open to others). But back to the campaign, they branded. They improved their graphics (somewhat).

And they are adjusting.

They pivoted. They bury the Medicare Advantage issue, hoping “out of sight, out of mind” and that somehow they will hold onto more retiree votes than most of us think they will.

And they have pivoted again. They may have even done some internal polling. They would have discovered what every teacher knows: Michael Mulgrew is not very popular. He’s taking the blame for Unity mishandling the pandemic, sending teachers into unsafe conditions, not backing us enough, or soon enough, inventing “instructional lunch.” He’s taking the blame for sucking up to Andrew Cuomo, looking like a dishrag instead of a union leader. He’s taking the blame for the UFT getting pummeled in the Spring 21 primaries – and Adams – one of the two guys we wanted to stop, becoming Mayor. And he’s taking the blame, despite Unity trying to keep it out of the news, for Unity and the MLC trying to privatize retirees’ Medicare.

In any case, they are hiding him.

Maybe they read what I wrote: Do the Right Thing?

You should read it. I said, for the good of the union, they should remove him. Put in someone else. Almost anyone. This would be bad for me politically – United for Change has a chance (albeit small) against Mulgrew – but we really would not have much of a chance against anyone else. But people are so angry at him, some of that anger gets turned into anger at the UFT, which is bad for all of us. So, even though it would not help me, I suggested they remove him for the good of the union.

But if they read what I wrote – THAT’S NOT WHAT I MEANT. I meant replace him because he generates anti-union sentiment among our members. I didn’t mean keep him at the top of the ticket, but hide him from view. Your consultants care more about winning than about the health of this union.