Looking for the union label: All over the party

http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/news/politics/blog/2007/10/looking_for_the_union_label_al.html

by Mark Silva

Looking for the union label isn't always easy in the campaign for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination. Union rank and file, or at least their leaders, are as split as the party now.

The AFL-CIO's inability to rally early around a particular party candidate has something to do with the splintering that takes place at this stage. It wasn't until mid-February of 2004, when Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts clearly had the party's nomination locked up, that the coalition of labor unions endorsed the senator. And the AFL-CIO isn't ready for '08 yet.

With that endorsement comes a lot of campaign groundwork -- with a $50-million-plus campaign effort pledged by the AFL-CIO in the next election cycle.

But then, the candidate with a lot of major union backing in the union-heavy state of Iowa in 2004 during the caucuses that year, Dick Gephardt, didn't run that well.

And the Service Employees International Union, one of the better at the ground game of canvassing -- and which endorsed Democrat Howard Dean in the primaries of 2004 -- now says it will not pick a candidate during the party's '08 primaries.

The union said Monday it won't choose a national candidate for the primary elections, underscoring divisions that had been apparent among SEIU supporters of John Edwards and the Democrats he trails in national polls: Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama.

FULL story at link.