When union leaders think about strategy for next year’s elections, one goal overrides everything else. “People are ready to do almost anything in terms of getting George Bush out of the White House,” says Gerald McEntee, president of the public employees union AFSCME and chair of the AFL-CIO’s political committee. There are disagreements about the best candidate, tactics, organizational turf, and… return to article
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Reader Comments (23)Page 1 of 1 pagesIf you can find a candidate that is not in the pocket of big business, be s/he Dem or Rep or Bozo, I’ll vote for ‘em! Until then, stop trying to indentify the stripes on the zebra!
Posted by Douglas on Aug 25, 2003 at 6:37 PM Gephardt “first out of the gate” with a health care plan? Give me a break? Dean’s proposal, tested and found effective in Vermont, doesn’t throw out the existing system to make it better. Instead, he chooses the unsexy but POSSIBLE route of working with the system to make it work for everyone…
Posted by Todd Randolph on Aug 25, 2003 at 9:00 PM I think Al Gore would make your best candidate to run for president that would have the best chance of defeating G. Bush. About 3 weeks ago Al Gore made a great speach in San Francisco, Ca. that you need to read. sincerely, paul
Posted by PAUL STEEL on Aug 25, 2003 at 10:05 PM Kucinich is electable if all the people who agree with him vote for him, period. Don’t let media pundits decide for the workers and the people! Dean’s biggest corporate sponsor is
AOL/Time Warner, and AIPAC organizes his campaign finance, for pity’s sake! We can’t afford to keep NAFTA and the WTO, and only Kucinich will end our participation. So long as we stay in those treaties, and ignore the rest, we increase environmental racism, asthma among our elders and children, disease among all, and joblessness and the destruction of labor unions in America. Support Kucinich. With the union and all of us who see he is the only one who will take us to the opposite end of the anti-labor, anti-people spectrum, Kucinich will win. All we’ll have to worry about then is keeping his airplanes aloft, bless him!
Posted by Virginia Velez on Aug 26, 2003 at 12:41 AM I’m saying “No” to Gephardt and any other politician that voted “yes” to the war in Iraq. Thanks to their vote, corporations from here (including worldcom) and the Bush Cartel are privatizing Iraq, while our troops are being used to enforce a “no organized labor, no jobs and no protests” to Iraqis. I don’t know about you, but I see sweatshops and slavery happening over there… While we lose jobs and may end up like Iraqis unable to work for pay and not allowed to protest.
I’m voting for Kucinich. Not only did he stand up for us regarding the war, he also stood up for us regarding our civil liberties attacked by the Bush Cartel’s (un)Patriot Act.
Something for the lucky ones represented by the unions to think about.
Yours truly,
Almost a slave!
Posted by Treva on Aug 26, 2003 at 12:42 AM Which candidate is going to put a fire in the belly of your average overworked American? Which candidate will motivate the slapped up the side of the head until stunned American to get out and vote? It’s Dean.
Posted by Sandra Steubing on Aug 26, 2003 at 4:11 AM I am happy to see the unions reaching out to non-union citizens. I don’t belong to a union but I realize that men fought and died to create unions and formed the middle class of America. The business owners and corporate enterprises are out for themselves and have spent years and millions to try to break the unions. Their concern for the USA or American workers is zero. I would be more than happy to participate in the Union’s efforts to defeat the Big Oil/Big Business and multinational control of the USA as represented by Bush, Cheney and their cronies. It would be nice to see Unions raising awareness in this Country about how important Unions are and organizing workers in all areas of employment.
Marann Edwards
Posted by marann edwards on Aug 26, 2003 at 6:07 AM I personally like Kucinish, but realize he cannot win, and the most important thing in 2004 is to remove Bush, therefore I am supporting the pro-labor candidate Gephardt
Posted by farley l. hatcher on Aug 26, 2003 at 8:05 AM Yep Andy Stern is right defeat Bush is the number one imperative
....but if you then put a b*stard in the White House who sh*ts on her/his union backers ( I’m thinking of Clinton right now) then you gotta wonder about the quality of the democracy.
In the long term we gotta dump the Democrats and have a real union-run and union-owned Labor Party in the US of A.
Posted by Andrew Casey on Aug 26, 2003 at 8:13 AM if the unions dont feel they can endorse kucinich, i think they should wait until the convention. they are not likely to see too many “kuciniches” come along
Posted by andy dalese on Aug 26, 2003 at 9:55 AM No candidate other than Kucinich is advocating reindustrialization of America and single payer health care.
He also had the courage to be against the Patriot Act and the authorization for the Iraq war, back when more opposition might have accomplished something.
Posted by Martha Koester on Aug 27, 2003 at 8:02 AM We need to defeat Bush first, but we also need to elect pro-labor reps
locally. I realize it is early on, however the ergency of the issuses facing us all warrant us to action now. Accountability will be the key in this and all future choices of leadership. Unions will lead the way. We have always had to, that is our burden to shoulder. For me Gephardt is the choice. We need to start reshaping this country to fullfil its potential. The next “shot heard round the world” needs to be fired in this next election cycle. This is the ONLY media. People are starving for the truth in this country, add a little leadership and we will be on our way to a much brighter day for all.TANKHAUL TEAMSTER LOCAL 89
Posted by JOHN on Aug 27, 2003 at 2:17 PM >“In the end, unions donít want >anything to distract from their >transcendent goal. ìWeíve got to >beat Bush,î Stern said. ìThatís the >only issue here.î”
Excuse me, but I thought the transcendent goal of unions was to organize workers to struggle for their class interests, not to help elect less-bad corporate-sponsored political candidates. If the AFL-CIO would divert a little of its energy and its members’ dues money into organizing unions, perhaps it could improve on its pathetic record as a labor federation.
Yes, Bush has been ìan unmitigated disaster for working people,î but so was Clinton and so will Lieberman or any other likely Democratic nominee be.
Unions will never be able to compete with corporate interests in the political arena, because organizations funded by workers can never raise enough money to be a meaningful player in politics. $33M doesn’t approach the political budget of the pharmaceutical industry alone. The AFL-CIO in politics is like the team that plays the Harlem Globetrotters-it is in the nature of the system that they lose every time.
Let’s fight instead on a field where we have a chance-organization in the workplace. At one time, it was generally understood that this, not unsuccessful lobbying, was the purpose of a union.
Posted by I.M. Knott on Aug 27, 2003 at 9:39 PM The dems need some lessons in how to respond to the very practiced and unified right wing pundits. Here’s a really good piece of advice titled: Psst…Just Say “No!” - a survival tactic for the Left.
Posted by Victoria on Aug 27, 2003 at 10:16 PM To the editor:
David Moberg’s piece on the question of unions’ endorsements in the Democratic Primaries gives voters a good overview of unions’ views of the candidates. He reminds readers that unions - and many of us, including non-working and non-unionized Americans - have one “transcendent goal”: to beat Bush. We’re going to beat Bush in 2004 by getting 110% behind the candidate who most represents a common sense alternative to the Bush Agenda.
I attended the Young Democrats of America annual conference in Buffalo a couple of weeks ago and have heard the candidates or their supporters speak to the issues affecting everyday Americans. In my opinion Dennis Kucinich is the candidate who is generating the most passionate and informed opposition to King Bush. He also has a record of beating incumbent Republicans in the heartland, because common people understand who he is and where he wants to bring us. It also helps that he’s a well-liked Congressman from Ohio which carries 21 electoral college votes.
Posted by Robert Jereski on Aug 28, 2003 at 11:26 PM I know we all had mixec feekling’s about the war but regardless of how you felt about the war the fact remain’s that we need to elect JOHN kerry in 2004. American’s have to realize that you can’t vote just based on what you believe in. Regarless of how you felt about the war the fact remaain’s that we can’t have 4 more year’s of Bush and we need to elect John Kerry whether you supported the war or not.
Posted by Andrew Heydt on Aug 29, 2003 at 1:13 AM dick gephart is my choice….his record of fighting against all these so salled “free trade agreements” speak for themselves.but bottom line is we do need to get bush out of office.we must vote and get our family , friends and co-workers educated to vote for the right candidate.as for the war in irag and his fight against terrorism , that is the only thing i like about bush.
proud teamster local 701
Posted by matt on Aug 30, 2003 at 4:14 AM The main point remains for all of us, that the main obstacle to peace were the guys who planned the whole thing back in 1998, not the guys/gals who went along with it in 2003. Those are the people who are the biggest threat to peace—not Gephardt or even Joe L.
The biggest threst to worker rights are in the White House. Women’s rights, civil rights, the environment, etc. The list is quite long. In fact it is an agenda, a right-wing agenda.
Now you might be able to point out a few places on that agenda that over laps with a few of the folks from the Democrat 9. But, you aren’t going to have peace if Bush is re-elected; count on it. Supreme court judges? The environment? The right to organize a union? The military budget? Public education? Let’s look at the big picture, not just one issue. Otherwise we’ll lose the big picture as well.
Posted by Joel on Aug 31, 2003 at 9:22 PM The only Dem candidate who can consistently take on Bush on all the issues progressives care about is Kucinich. On health care, on the role of the federal government for something other than imperialism, on the constant use of war for foreign policy, etc. Kucinich can show Bush is bad for the US and bad for the world.
Posted by Charles Jannuzi on Sep 1, 2003 at 11:57 PM No surprises here. Big Labor ready to hop in the pocket of whatever low-wage conservative gains the Democratic Party nomination—despite their support for NAFTA and its spawn, despite their support for Clinton’s evisceration of the Social Security Act of 1935, despite their support for the abomination that is the Taft-Hartley Act, tax cuts for the wealthy (Gephardt’s opening bid in the 2001 wealth transfer follies was $800m!), despite their rejection of universal single-payer health care, etc.
Someday, maybe, the rank and file will learn that their big-union leadership, the heirs of the right-wing purges in organized labor in the last century, are not their friends, but the friends of big capital and their purchased politicians, Democrat and Republican alike.
Kucinich is the only friend of labor running as a Democrat. If the union leadership actually cared about their membership, they’d support Kucinich all the way, and if/when he doesn’t get the nomination, move their support to an actual friend of labor and its concerns—instead of whichever low-wage conservative the Democrats will offer.
Posted by Shannon Lynagh on Sep 4, 2003 at 5:45 AM “Which Democrat to endorse?” is entirely the wrong question, because it assumes once again that the Democratic Party is the only choice. Perhaps the best choice is not a Democrat or a Republican. Perhaps the best choice would be someone who really gives a damn about the needs of working people. Someone like, oh, maybe a Green Party candidate! The Democrats have proven time and again their unwillingness to stand up and really fight for progressive causes. Unfortunately the major unions have also tended to be sellouts lately, reveling in their “partnerships” with corporate bosses.
Well, as Phil Ochs (Goddess bless his soul) once sang “These are the days of decision!” Progressives have to decide if they will continue settling for a “lesser of two evils” that keeps getting lesser and more evil, or if they will support a real alternative like the Green Party. It is time to think outside the corporate, Republicrat/Demublican box.
Posted by Vince Prygoski on Sep 26, 2003 at 7:49 PM Page 1 of 1 pages -
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