cum -- jeanne cummings of "politico." >> award-winning reporting an analysis, covering history as it happens. live from our nation's capitol, this is "washington week" with gwen ifill, produced in association with national journal. corporate funding is provided by -- >> we know why we're here -- to connect our forces to what they need, when they need it. >> to help troops see danger before it sees them. >> to answer the call of the brave and bring them safely home. >> around the globe, the people of boeing are working together to support and protect all who serve. >> that's why we're here. >> corporate funding is also provided by prudential financial. additional funding for "washington week" is provided by the annenberg foundation, the corporation for public broadcasting, and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. once again live from washington, moderator gwen ifill. gwen: good evening. if you've been following the ups and downs of the budget standoff in washington this week, you are by now understandably dizzy. short story -- as of 8:00 p.m. eastern

[laughter] >> you might want to check out jeanne cummings' peace in ataboutco," firefighters and other unions. >> the biggest loss democrats suffered in 2010 were white, blue-collar, non-college educated voters, male. >> i would think those in the private sector would outnumber those in the government sector by a law. -- by a lot. if the issue is whether or not what happened in wisconsin is going to help or, it is either a wash or it is quite to help republicans. >> i could not disagree more with krauthammer. two at 03 right now are opposed to the repeal of collective bargaining for public employees, let alone private employees. >> four years ago, eight republicans were ready to go, claiming they were ready to be president. what is going on with the republican party? >> let's go back 20 years. 1991, there was a sense among democrats that george bush was strong, a ward 0, unbeatable, and it took a clinton from the outside to do this. obama is strong, and they are overestimating how strong he is, but look at the unemployment number. it went down, and it looks like we are at the beginning

joined by jeanne cummings, assistant managing editor for politico. thank you for your time.lk about in your article that this could cause significant repercussions and not because these right-leaning union members vote for republicans in sizable numbers. are we talking about a flicker of people or are we talking what could be widespread? >> no, we're talking in terms of the conservative nature of these unions, they are 50% or even higher in some cases, they lean right. this is a very large voting bloc that in these last election cycle has been in the corner of the republican camp, despite the fact they're part of the labor movement. and these fights over collective bargaining rights have motivated and energized these unions to join ranks with the afl-cio and other labor unions that they typically have had some distance from. and so it could change some of those votes. there's also the optics of it. you know, picture of republican candidates standing next to a police officer is sort of a staple of a gop campaign and they may not be able to capture those kind of images. >> the