SEIU Socialist Worked Inside G.O.P.

Cross posted from KeyWiki Blog

He's a Vietnam veteran, he looks like your Uncle Frank, he goes to Republican Party conferences - but he ain't no conservative.


In September 2008 George "Skip" Roberts was at the Republican Party conference in the Twin Cities.

"As he has entered elevators and receptions and talked to GOP delegates about where he works, the Vietnam veteran often finds himself getting a strange look from his fellow Republicans."

"You are a member of the SEIU? Are you here to protest?" his interlocutors ask, Roberts recounted in an interview with Convention Daily. "People don't quite know how to deal with us."

While SEIU is heavily Democratic and endorsed Barack Obama for president, about 25 percent of its 2 million members are registered Republicans

Skip Roberts was hired around 2005 ago by then SEIU President Andy Stern to help bolster the SEIU's voice among Republicans and "help the union find common ground with the party on economic security issues."

"It's important to leverage our support" on both sides of the aisle, says Roberts.

Roberts is in a great position to work with the G.O.P. As SEIU Assistant Director of Government Affairs, he has the ear of the union president and has served as an adviser to the great man himself.

While Roberts looks like a Republican, his politics would not sit well with most G.O.P. =ers. He is a former aide to the late far left Democratic Congressman from Hawaii, (and friend of Barack Obama, Sr. , Neil Abercrombie, but is no Democrat either.

Like many SEIUers , Skip Roberts is active with the Marxist based Democratic Socialists of America. From 2004 to 2008, Roberts has joined at least three DSA delegations to Socialist International conferences and has monitored elections in Mexico as a DSA observer.

Roberts doesn't even seem to respect the Republicans that much.

When asked by far left American Prospect , "What Else Should the Federal Government Nationalize?" , Roberts replied;

"The Republican National Committee. It's a natural under lemon socialism; we're only taking over those enterprises with a failed business model."

Possibly quite true, but not the kind of thing you'd expect to hear from a loyal Republican.