Look, in the middle of this economic crisis and financial meltdown, you have to wonder: why is this election close? The answer is: race. All those negative answers to questions about whether Barack Obama has enough experience, or can be commander-in-chief or…whatever you want to choose, boil down to certain people won’t vote for a black person for president. Simple as that.

   What does that mean within labor? Fact is, a certain percentage of the people who fall into the above category are union members–and union members from battleground states.

   Which is why I offer the following. At the Democratic Convention, I happened to mosy in on a breakfast meeting of the Ohio delegation. Everyone knows what Ohio means in the election–it doomed John Kerry in 2004. Unknown to me, the featured speaker that morning was Richard Trumka, secretary-treasurer of the AFL-CIO. For those not in the know, Trumka was the president of the United Mine Workers for a long time until he was elected to the Federation’s post in 1989–part of the Sweeney team election that ousted the then-old guard lead by Lane Kirkland (actually, for a short time, Tom Donahue, who had been Kirkland’s secretary-treasurer assumed the post mid-term when Kirkland stepped down but Donahue was seen as simply the extension of the Kirkland Administration…hmmm…echos of the current politica l debate?).

   Anyway, I had my video guy shoot this video. You have to be impressed with Trumka’s willingness to take on race head on–and I believe that must be done throughout the country. You can’t avoid it and it is foolish to not talk about it openly. So, take a look, comment and pass it on: