Ravenwood - 05/01/03 01:00 PM
The Hill notes that Presidential hopeful, Dick Gebhardt really knows how to cater his speeches to his audience. Last January, Dick was talking to some Union voters in Iowa about how his father drove a milk truck.
"He was a Teamster. He told me every time ... we were at the dinner table that we had food on the table and clothes on our back because he was represented by a union that could bargain and get him fair wages for his work." -- Rep. Dick Gebhardt, D-MO, wooing Union voters on the campaign trail in Iowa.Here is how Dick's brother Don remembers things.
"My father was in the Teamsters, but that's because he had to be to get the job. I don't recall him talking much about the union, how great it was. He prided himself on being a Republican. He hated Harry Truman. He had the feeling you had to make it on your own, that any kind of welfare program would just raise taxes." -- Don Gephardt, Dick's brother.You believe who you want to. But my old man is a Democrat, and while I remember him telling me on several occasions that he was busting his ass to put food on the table and clothes on our backs, I have no recollection of him ever telling me about the wonders of collective bargaining.
There was a time when I think unions were absolutely necessary. Nowadays though, it seems like those that run them are as greedy and corrupt as most politicians.
Posted by: MarcL at May 1, 2003 8:15 PMAh, many were the night round the dinner table when my sainted father would hold forth on the wonders of collective bargaining....
Posted by: Jack Cluth at May 2, 2003 8:04 AM(c) Ravenwood and Associates, 1990 - 2014