With friends like these…Mudcat Saunders has some advice for the unions in Wisconsin.

In an interview with The Huffington Post, David “Mudcat” Saunders, a longtime Democratic political strategist known for his work with blue-collar voters, had a different take. Rather than worrying about floodgates bursting open, he argued that the best public relations move for the Democrats would have been to simply let Walker’s bill pass and then demonize it.

“Sometimes the best punch you can throw is to let somebody throw theirs first,” Saunders said. “I would have debated it forever, as long as I could have kept it going, and I would have voted against it. Let the Republicans have their way and then work on getting the state house back and the governor’s mansion. But a protest, that can only work so long.” [HuffPo, emphasis added.]

Wow. Brilliant. So let’s allow the Rethuglicans to gut the unions first, and then we’ll work on supporting labor rights. Maybe then they could start working on why so many of us have little loyalty to the Democratic party anymore, too. I’m sure they’ll be mystified by the idea that they’ve become the Republican-lite party, and don’t seem to have much attachment to any of the principles some of us value.

But then, maybe I’m just prejudiced against any comment given to the Huffington Post, that faux liberal rag.