I live in Massachusetts. To suggest it took a poll to tell there was going to be this problem is also dishonest. I worked every spare minute of my time on the Coakley campaign. We knew there was a problem as soon as we hit the streets. People were telling us they wanted nothing to do with the Democratic Party because they felt betrayed by Obama. Many of the volunteers who had put in hour after hour working for Obama told us they wanted nothing to do with the Democratic Party because there has been no change as promised. Wearing my union jacket I was also repeatedly castigated. People told me that the unions sold out on healthcare reform.

We are facing a real credibility problem. People are turned off to the Democratic Party for not delivering as promised and they are turned off to labor leaders who they think sold them out on single-payer universal healthcare. I don't think anyone is taking Richard Trumka's words very seriously now when he talks about the fight for jobs. People see the Democrats as liars and they see organized labor as a barking dog with no bite that shuts up when the Democrats give the order.

"You see," said AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka, "they believe that Wall Street is being taken care of. They believe that corporate America is being taken care of. They believe the insurers are being taken care of. But they don't think that workers are being taken care of."

Is there any truth to this?

Anyone who hitches their cart to the donkey or the leadership of the AFL-CIO is going to have a very serious credibility problem. Very few people are going to believe anyone connected to these people. This puts us back to organizing where we should have been in the first place; among the people with our own program for change. Reassessment is needed quickly. You and Sam Webb responded with too little too late with no sense of where people are at. You are relying on polls when you should be relying on what people are telling us. If you wait for the last poll before election day 2010 to analyze in an article what happened on election day the week after the election you are going to be leaving workers in a real lurch. We need to get this campaign for jobs off the ground quickly not by bringing together the usual coalition partners but by initiating action from the ground up. Our call should be "We want jobs not Obama's wars." Rather than relying on polls for your story you should have relied on what people were saying.

You hit the nail on the head in this statement that reflects pretty much what I heard at every door I knocked on-

"But these dire projections will not become reality if labor along with the African American, Latino, Asian Pacific American, women and youth voters in the first place mobilize like never before at the grass roots and push Congress and the president to take on Wall Street and deliver for jobs and economic security including direct government programs financed by cutting spending on the wars and taxing extreme wealth."

The problem is we were told not to mention anything about the wars when we were told what to talk to voters about. I was even told it would be better not wear my peace button while talking to people. Others were told not to wear buttons for single-payer.

Kennedy was for single-payer until it was time to support it then like you he helped to kill it.

Your article is full of contradictions doing nothing to help people understand these problems.

How can you possibly believe what you write that Obama is not walking away from the unemployment problem? His Wall Street bailouts and his funding for wars contributes directly to the problems of unemployment and deepening poverty. - Barry Ammerman