I post to defend the honor of Rhode Island chapter of the National Education Association’s Executive Director Robert Walsh. This is the headline of his op-ed that appeared in Sunday’s Projo…

Robert A. Walsh Jr.: Straight-party option serves R.I.

Yet beneath the headline, the op-ed makes no claim of the sort…

Second, [Edward Achorn] implied that public-employee unions encouraged people to vote a straight Democratic ticket. This, too, is inaccurate, as almost every Rhode Island union that represents public employees, including the National Education Association Rhode Island, supported candidates from both parties, and often took positions in non-partisan local races, which would not be included when voters “pulled the lever” for one party or another.
Therefore, encouraging straight-party ballot voting would have been counter-productive to the expressed views of these organizations.

The second excerpt almost certainly represents Mr. Walsh’s actual view, the discrepancy resulting from the journalistic practice of having someone different from an article’s author write its headline.
However, it may be possible to blame Mr. Walsh just a wee bit for the fact that Projo staffers apparently assume that NEA officers will automatically be advocates for straight-ticket voting.