Barack Obama has given the keys to the bank where taxpayer money is stored to unions. A flurry of executive orders within days of entering the Oval Office, the stocking of government with union officials, Obamacare that favors union members, the enrichment of the United Auto Workers at the expense of GM and Chrysler shareholders and creditors (and at the expense of laws), Project Labor Agreements that require federal funds for construction projects go to union workers...the list goes on and on.

Partly this was a payoff to unions that spent heavily to elect Barack Obama and other Democrats. However another factor was at work: Obama and company read electoral maps and see something that has escaped our attention until Linda Chavez pointed it out in her New York Post column today:

Union households were a decisive factor in President Obama's 2008 election. The president won 53 percent of the popular vote, but that victory came largely because he won such relatively union-heavy states as Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania. But many union members who voted for the president and his Democratic cohorts in Congress won't make the same mistake again.

Half of all union members here live in just six states: California, New York, Illinois, Michigan, Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

Needless to say, the auto industry and its affiliated industries (glass, tires, steel, auto parts) are especially to be favored given their prominence in these key states.

The fact that union membership is so heavily concentrated in states top heavy with electoral votes needed to win the next Presidential contest has clearly not escaped Barack Obama or his entourage (his Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, is a politico known for his skill in fundraising and picking the right candidates for each district; his chief domestic policy advisor, David Axelrod, is a legendary campaign strategist; Obama himself played a role in designing districts as a state senator that would play a role in his own state election wins).

We can expect a continued series of overtly and covert favors to union members-be it rescuing their pension funds, or even more rules and regulations that favor union leaders and their members over the rest of Americans-as we approach November, 2012.