Note: As I wrote this it continued to grow longer and longer. Part of it is because I continued to refer to and quote other webpages. I hope you don't mind, and I encourage you to read through everything. I think it's worth it.

Four unions representing about 30 percent of the AFL-CIO's U.S. membership will boycott the labor federation's annual convention, a first step toward one of the biggest splits in the organized labor movement in 70 years, union officials familiar with the matter said.

The Service Employees International Union, the AFL-CIO's fastest growing union with 1.3 million members, along with the Teamsters, the United Food and Commercial Workers, and Unite Here will announce later today that they won't attend this week's AFL- CIO meeting in Chicago, the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said.

The AFL-CIO has been having some problems recently, and this split is just another sign of the times. SEIU and UFCW are two unions in particular that have begun to look outside the traditional labor union box for what they can do to reverse the decline of union membership in the labor force. Traditional unions in manufacturing are dealing with the impact of globalization and a decline among the manufacturing sectors of the economy. Of course their membership will decline if less people are employed in that sector of the economy. The only way to stop it is protectionism, and that's a battle that they have no chance of winning. SEIU and others in the service sector are seeing a growth in their sector, to grow their ranks they have to convince these new workers that union membership offers something. The United Farm Workers also have this idea:

"To realize our goal of organizing significant numbers of low-to moderate-wage Latino and immigrant workers in the face of fierce employer resistance during the next decade, we must move aggressively to apply new resources and make changes in our own organization," said UFW President Arturo Rodriguez. "We are convinced the Change to Win Coalition mirrors our commitment of finding new ways to refocus on organizing and vigorously pursue anti-worker employers."

In addition to the old manufacturing unions sticking with AFL-CIO, there is also AFSCME and its President Gary McEntee. While many members of the Change to Win Coalition are dealing with growth in their sector of the economy and are trying to attract membership, AFSCME has an approach of playing politics as expanded government will obviously expand their membership. It's like the spoils system all over again.

This is one reason why I'm not found on the union-bashing that often takes place when discussing economic freedom and liberty. Not all unions are alike. Some are bad, I'll admit it, but some are good. I tend to expect that unions will act in their rational self interest, just like corporations. A manufacturing union will rationally support protectionism and try to support politicians that promise to deliver. A union of government workers will want to expand government. This is no different than the pharmaceuticals supporting politicians that keep cheaper drugs off the market. Unions, corporations, consumers, and all other members of the economy are looking for profit and power. That's the bottom line. Sometimes that brings them into conflict with those supporting government that's generally hands off with the economy. Sometimes sectors really do just want to be left alone. And some, like SEIU's Andy Stern, are pretty smart:

The economic policy of the Democratic Party, he says, ''is basically being opposed to Republicans and protecting the New Deal. It makes me realize how vibrant the Republicans are in creating 21st-century ideas, and how sad it is that we're defending 60-year-old ideas.'' Like big labor, Stern says, the party needs to challenge its orthodoxy -- and its interest groups -- if it wants to put forward a program that makes sense for new-economy workers. Could it be that the Social Security system devised in the 1930's isn't, in fact, the only good national retirement program for today's wage earner? Is it possible that competition is the best way to rescue an imperiled public-school system?

This spring, Stern plans to convene an eclectic group of Democrats to begin outlining a new economic agenda. ''We don't want it to be the same old people,'' Stern told me. ''We want people who might say, for example, 'Maybe privatization isn't such a terrible thing for people,' even if that's not what the Democratic Party thinks. Or, for example, 'Wal-Mart isn't the worst thing for the economy after all.' '' He laughed heartily at that one. ''We need to shock people out of their comfort zone and make them think.''

Some Democrats think that it's just a problem of framing and messaging. That Democrats can win not by changing their message, but nominating a better candidate that uses better words. Ruy Teixeira offers a bruising attack on those that think there's just a minor problem with the Democratic Party.

The Framing Myth. Associated with Berkeley linguistics professor George Lakoff, the framing approach assures Democrats they need not change what they say, but how they say it--how they "frame" their message. As Josh Green pointed out in his devastating Atlantic piece on Lakoff, this framing is typically a reshuffling of tired old rhetorical cliches and shows no signs of being any more politically effective than the Democrats' previous unframed appeals.

The Inoculation Myth. One reason John Kerry got the Democratic nomination was that many Democrats thought his Vietnam service would inoculate him against the charge that Democrats were not sufficiently tough to conduct the war on terror. It didn't work. But many Democrats appear to have concluded in the aftermath of the 2004 election that the solution to the party's problems is to have more and better inoculation. Let's act even tougher on national security! And let's inoculate ourselves on values! And on religion! And on culture!

This seems no more likely to work in 2005 and beyond than it did in 2004. Voters still want to know what Democrats stand for and inoculation, pretty much by definition, cannot provide that.

The Unity Myth. Another approach among Democrats is to insist that little needs to be re-thought--the key is for Democrats to unite around what they already believe. As Mark Schmitt pointed out recently, this approach confuses a desirable kind of unity (partisan unity in action) with an undesirable kind of unity (agreement on program and ideas without vigorous debate and discussion). Democrats need far more debate and discussion about ideas, not far less.

The Mobilization Myth. A hardy perennial in Democratic circles, the mobilization approach insists that Democrats' problems can be overcome by a sufficiently high level of mobilization among Democrats and Democratic-leaning groups. The fact of the matter is, however, that the Democratic coalition was pretty highly-mobilized in the 2004 election, especially in the battleground states. The fatal problem was that they couldn't convert the considerable dissatisfaction with Bush among independents and moderates into large enough margins among these groups to win the election. That's basically the same problem facing Democrats today: how to turn the "Revolt of the Middle" into solid support in the center of the electorate. Mobilization, by definition, can't solve this problem.

Sorry, Democrats, there's just no substitute for good ideas and fresh approaches. It's time to jettison these myths and buckle down to the real work of change--serious change--in what Democrats say to voters.

I particularly agree with his attacks on the "Inoculation Myth." That's the major reason why you won't see me supporting Hillary Clinton, or Biden, or Bayh, or others like them in the 2008 primary. I want a choice, not an echo.