The Democratic Party machine is going into overdrive to save Melissa Bean, one of the CAFTA 15. I wrote about this a bit last week but the intensity of the Save Melissa effort picked up: Last week, there was a flurry of calls from Sen. Dick Durbin, the senior senator from Illinois, to key labor people with the message that Bean needs to be saved.

Key unions in the district–UNITE HERE, SEIU, the Teamsters and the Machinists (to point out the obvious, reps from both labor federations)–are actually lending a hand to Bill Scheurer, the independent who is running for the seat. Says one labor insider: “Scheurer could get at least 4 percent, maybe even ten percent, which would mean Bean is toast.”

The Democratic Party is even asking fundraising mavens who aren’t affiliated with Bean’s campaign to go to unions to ask for money for her. Rahm Emanuel, the head of the Democratic Campaign Congressional Committee, is putting on a full-court press on unions.

Frankly, the Democratic Party has only itself to blame. If Bean and another CAFTA 15 member, New York’s Ed Towns, go down
(Towns is facing at least one, and perhaps two, primary opponents), it will be because a few unions are finally drawing the line, and are willing to oppose Democrats who vote against the interests of working men and women–frankly, that stance from my friends in labor has been long overdue.