By Mark Gruenberg
PAI Staff Writer

WASHINGTON (PAI) - Progressive groups nationwide, including the AFL-CIO, plan to spend at least $150 million - and could spend double that - on voter education and get-out-the-vote activities for this year's election, news reports say.

And that may be underestimating labor's contribution.

Quoting leaders at the Take Back America conference in Washington - a confab of 2,000 activists - news reports put the minimum spending at $150 million and range up to $400 million.

Their objective is not only to elect a progressive Democrat to the White House but to increase the progressive majority in the House and to get the 60 Senate votes needed to halt GOP filibusters against the Employee Free Choice Act and other progressive legislation, said conference members, including Change to Win Executive Director Greg Tarpinian.

Labor will be a key part of the effort. "We cannot take back America politically or in any other way unless workers are in motion, in the workplace and politically," Tarpinian told delegates. Organizing, he added, was the key, since the 2004 election showed labor and its allies "were too small" to beat Republican George W. Bush.

The groups involved in the education, registration and get-out-the-vote drives include People for the American Way, the AFL-CIO, Change to Win, Rock the Vote and MoveOn.org. The AFL-CIO budgeted $53.4 million for such action for this year.

But the progressives also made clear that the sole goal is not electing Democrats, but holding candidates - of any party - to a progressive agenda. Robert Borosage of Campaign for America's Future warned of a "window of opportunity" for progressives to push workers' rights, universal national health care and other causes.

The Service Employees, a Change to Win member, plans to spend $75 million on education, mobilization and getting out the vote, Secretary-Treasurer Anna Burger has said. AFSCME, the AFL-CIO'S largest union, plans to spend $60 million on similar efforts, adds its president, Gerald McEntee.