Political Parties and supportive groups

Political parties are coalitions; while labor has traditionally been associated with the Democrats, Republicans are trying to make inroads in that. Tuesday's New york times reports, G.O.P. Makes Its Pitch to Firefighters' Union. Reporter Steven Greenhouse reports how several GOP officials have met with the firefighters, and there are hints of Hacker and Pierson: 'work with us, since we are the majority party, if you want to get your agenda passed.'

The Teamsters, the service employees and other unions have begun cooperating with Republicans. But rarely have the Republicans made such strong overtures toward a union as they did on Monday toward the firefighters.

There is also a dose of symbolism in this effort:

The firefighters have cachet because they are viewed as pillars in many communities and because 343 New York firefighters were killed on Sept. 11, 2001.

A second article from Tuesday's New York Times about groups and parties is Pastors' Get-Out-the-Vote Training Could Test Tax Rules. As nonprofits, churches are not supposed to engage in campaigning for any candidate:

A politician speaking to a religious group is hardly new, and the tax code allows churches and other tax-exempt charities to register voters and to express views on public issues.
...
The tax agency found "a disturbing amount" of political activity during the 2004 election, including churches' inviting just one candidate to speak or distributing voters' guides that in effect favored one candidate over another, Mr. Everson said in a statement.

This is "spot-on" wth Hacker and Pierson's argument that tht Republican party has been more focused on mobilizing the base, and not moving toward the center as the median voter model would predict:

Republicans, encouraged by their success mobilizing religion-minded voters in 2004, are stepping up their efforts to collect church directories around the country to help turn out voters for the midterm races. Democrats are watching the Pennsylvania senator's race closely in part because Mr. Santorum's opponent, Bob Casey Jr., shares Mr. Santorum's opposition to abortion rights, defusing the issue that has galvanized Christian conservatives.