Dean works to be labor’s man

DETROIT – With a Bruce Springsteen anthem as his

introductory music, Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean

bounded to a podium in Concord, N.H., the other night and told a

cheering crowd of labor union members, “We now have the means

to take this country back.”

The stop Friday night at a New Hampshire community college was

routine in most respects but symbolically important in one way: It

was the campaign-trail kickoff of Dean’s efforts to position

himself as labor’s main man two months before voters in Iowa

and New Hampshire begin voting for a Democratic presidential

nominee.

At the moment, the former Vermont governor is running way ahead

in the polls in New Hampshire, but he is still No. 2 in the hearts

of labor. Rep. Richard A. Gephardt, Mo., has the endorsement of 21

labor organizations, including the Teamsters, that collectively

represent about 5 million workers.

But Dean’s camp senses that some of the momentum on the

labor front has shifted its way. Last week, Dean won the

endorsements of the AFL-CIO’s two largest unions, the Service

Employees International Union (SEIU) and the American Federation of

State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME).

As Dean made clear in rallies in New Hampshire, Michigan and

Iowa over the past two days, the SEIU and AFSCME’s combined 3

million members could be critical in helping him lock up the

nomination. In addition to the money, votes and organizing muscle

of the unions’ members, Dean explicitly recognized that the

endorsements will help counter perceptions that he appeals mainly

to liberal Northeastern whites. Women make up about half of the two

organizations’ membership, and minorities make up about a

third.

“We need their diversity,” Dean said at one campaign

stop. “We simply can’t (win) with just middle-class

white people.”

While both unions have heavy concentrations of members in

California and New York, they also have members throughout the

Midwest and New England. For example, SEIU – which represents

health care workers, social workers, janitors and government

employees – is the largest union in New Hampshire.

“The press used to say we’re too small, too narrow,

that we weren’t very diverse,” Dean told another

meeting on Friday in Rochester, N.H. “Now we have two of the

largest and most diverse unions on our side. Let them say that

now.”

It is unlikely Dean or any Democrat will win the AFL-CIO

endorsement until there is a nominee because that requires a

two-thirds majority vote of AFL-CIO-affiliated unions. But

Dean’s advisers hope that having Stern and McEntee, who are

sometimes rivals, on the same podium with Dean gives his candidacy

a visible symbol of labor solidarity.

Paul Farhi
The Washington Post

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