The biggest part of the working families’ political mobilization has always been “boots on the ground”—not ads on the airwaves. Yesterday’s primary victory in Pennsylvania for Rep. Mark Critz (D) shows just how much ground working families’ boots can cover.

The just-launched Workers' Voice initiative will activate and energize networks of working families—union and nonunion, online and offline—around political campaigns, legislative issues and holding elected officials accountable to “build an independent voice for the working and middle class,” says AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Elizabeth Shuler.

Two years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court gave business corporations and other groups the green light for unlimited independent campaign spending. That decision in the Citizens United case, says the AFL-CIO Executive Council, has “undermined democracy.”

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R), his lieutenant governor and four Republican state senators will face voters in recall elections this spring under an agreement approved today by a Dane County judge.

While President Obama has placed his faith in America’s working men and women to lead our country to economic recovery, Republican presidential candidates have pledged their loyalty to Wall Street and the 1%. Today the AFL-CIO General Board “voted proudly and enthusiastically” to endorse Obama for a second term. 

Oregon working families helped propel former state Sen. Suzanne Bonamici (D) to victory yesterday in a special election for the U.S. House in the state’s northwestern First Congressional District. Bonamici, who defeated Republican businessman Rob Cornilles, replaces David Wu who resigned last year.

Newt Gingrich has said some pretty outlandish things over the years—the most recent was his proposal to put poor kids to work cleaning inner-city schools. But as a friend of mine was fond of saying—“sometimes even a blind squirrel can find an acorn.”  Newt has an acorn.

We all know politicians will say just about anything to get elected. But sometimes what they say is so outrageous or strange, even seasoned political junkies are left scratching their heads.

The Washington Post’s Greg Sargent has question for his media colleagues that a whole lot of the rest of us would also like to ask: When the heck are reporters going to demand that Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney start backing up his claims that he created 100,000 jobs when he ran the hedge fund Bain Capital?

United Wisconsin, the coalition spearheading the movement to recall Gov. Scott Walker (R), announced today that volunteers have collected more than 500,000 signatures on petitions to put the recall on the ballot.