One imagines Jon Pelto listening wistfully to John Lennon, singing “A working class hero is something to be.” But the evidence keeps piling up: When it comes to Jon Pelto, a working class hero is something he ain’t.

Add the SEIU to the list of labor unions who have not only endorsed Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s reelection bid, but have rubbed Pelto’s face in it at the same time. When the SEIU’s Connecticut branch gave Malloy the nod, they refused to even listen to Pelto.

Jon Pelto, readers will recall, has set himself up as the voice of the common man. He fully expected Connecticut’s labor unions to ignore reality and sign on to his quixotic quest for the governor’s chair. They didn’t, because Pelto is really the voice of whoever pays him the most, and the labor unions know it.

The SEIU snub is not a surprise. Rewind a couple of months when local union President David Pickus said Pelto “devised strategies to portray workers as undeserving and greedy.”

“Now as a potential candidate he is seeking support from unions but he had no support for unions in 2001 when he was strategizing against Connecticut workers and aligning himself with disgraced former governor John Rowland,” Pickus wrote. “Running for governor is a serious endeavor and it is important to understand who has paid Jonathan Pelto in the past and not just his current rhetoric as a potential candidate.”

The SEIU isn’t alone. The AFL-CIO didn’t give Pelto much credence when they elected to endorse Malloy. And despite casting himself in the role of defender of teachers, teachers union AFT didn’t even invite Pelto to the convention. They went with Malloy, too.

These unions are key endorsements for Malloy, each one representing many thousands of voting workers in Connecticut. The SEIU is one of the state’s largest labor union, with 65,000 members.

But yet, Pelto’s farce continues. He’s got enough signatures to get on the ballot (how many of them are from Republicans hoping to pull votes away from Malloy remains unknown), and he’ll power through, with nothing but questionable facts and even more questionable morals to offer potential supporters.

One wonders why.

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