UUPdate

November 16, 2006

Phoning the way to electoral success

Outreach Committee Chair and SUNY New Paltz chapter president Glenn McNitt (foreground) and Richard Kelder, the VP for Professionals at New Paltz, urging fellow members to get out and vote on Election Day and to support the union’s endorsed candidates. Their efforts paid off, helping tip the balance of power in Washington, allowing Democrats to retake control of Congress.

“It’s important we provide effective new leadership in Congress,” the UUPers said as they donned headsets to call their fellow unionists.   

Unionists heeded the call, as voters chose change, helping Democrats regain control of both houses of Congress for the first time in 12 years.  

“Many knew who the endorsed candidates were and mentioned their names before I did,” said McNitt. “They knew they were voting and who they were voting for.”

“This is part of our democratic process, to get involved, support your candidates and work to change our political system,” said Richard Kelder, the VP for Professionals at New Paltz, explaining why he chose to volunteer.

Kelder and McNitt were among four UUPers from New Paltz who spent an evening calling over 300 NYSUT members from the union’s regional office in Kingston in November.

This same form of political activism repeated itself in several locations across the state, as dozens of UUP members staffed phone banks and knocked on neighbor’s doors in support of union backed candidates. That outreach helped to swing the outcome of Congressional elections, and lead to a sweep by all of NYSUT’s endorsed candidates for statewide office: Eliot Spitzer for governor, Andrew Cuomo as attorney general, and the re-elections of U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Comptroller Alan Hevesi.   

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