Now that Blanche Lincoln has been able to hold onto her job, we are to expect little jabs from the right on how “the progressives lost big tonight”. That, despite being untrue, is to be expected, but this is not:

A senior White House official just called me with a very pointed message for the administration’s sometime allies in organized labor, who invested heavily in beating Blanche Lincoln, Obama’s candidate, in Arkanas.

“Organized labor just flushed $10 million of their members’ money down the toiled on a pointless exercise,” the official said. “If even half that total had been well-targeted and applied in key House races across this country, that could have made a real difference in November.”

Whoever this “administration official” is needs to be fired. Labor makes up a major chunk of the base for the left, and for someone at Obama’s White House to make such a statement is in insult and indefensible. Maybe labor will tell the White House that they just flushed a huge chunk of their base?

This is the kind of typical politics that so many of us are tired of, and the kind we had hoped Obama was above. Sadly that hope is dead, unless Obama gets his political act together and get rid of these people.

UPDATE:

The AFL-CIO has fired back:

“If that’s their take on this, then they severely misread how the electorate feels and how we’re running our political program. When we say we’re only going to support elected officials who support our issues,” said AFL-CIO spokesman Eddie Vale. “When they say we should have targeted our money among some key house races among Blue Dog Democrats –that ain’t happening.” 

“Labor isn’t an arm of the Democratic Party,” Vale said. “It exists to suport working families. And that’s what we said tonight, and that’s what we’re gong to keep saying.”

That’s a great response. With November not looking too bright for Democrats, does the White House really want to piss off this powerhouse?