Teamsters in the final FINAL GOTV push

Hoffa and Hall on a whirlwind tour of Ohio.

Teamsters from Maine to Hawaii are making the last great effort to get their brothers and sisters to the polls and to vote for people who support working families. They're still flat out in the crucial battleground state of Ohio. Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa and General Secretary-Treasurer Ken Hall talked to members at a UPS work site this morning during their whirlwind tour of Ohio barns, hubs, locals, factories and campaign offices.

Hoffa and Hall traveled from UPS to a plant to visit more Teamsters. We're not sure where. The exhausted photographer emailed us "No clue where we are."

State political coordinator Jeff Crabtree with
Local 200 member Willie Lewis at ADM Cocoa
in Milwaukee.

The tremendous effort by unions in Ohio may be the key to the president's re-election. The Atlantic Monthly speculated that unions are Obama's secret weapon:

...if the manufacturing states of the Upper Midwest end up forming a surprising electoral-vote firewall for Obama, insulating his reelection bid from potential losses in Florida, Virginia, and Colorado, he will owe a debt of gratitude to the unions, who have been working doggedly, and largely under the radar, on his behalf.

It's not just Ohio. Throughout the industrial Midwest, Teamsters are phonebanking, canvassing, driving voters to the polls -- everything possible to put the working class in the "win" column.

In California, hundreds of Teamster families rallied last night against Prop 32, which would take union money out of politics but exempt billionaires and corporations. The rally started just hours after news broke that the Benedict Arnold Koch brothers had laundered $11 million to campaign committees supporting the ballot question.

Local 728's War Horse, getting
ready for action.

Some states, like Georgia, will almost certainly end up in Romney's column. But Atlanta Teamsters have their sights set on defeating anti-worker members of the state Legislature. Yesterday they readied Local 728's tractor trailer -- the "War Horse" -- to function as a campaign war room. Today they're phonebanking and sending canvassers to hotspots that need turnout.

Other states, like Maryland, will almost certainly end up casting a majority of votes for Obama. That didn't stop members of Local 453 in Cumberland from being up and at 'em early on Election Day:

Local 453 early this morning.

Stay tuned. We will keep you posted as the election develops.