True. This is a pleasant surprise...a union that intends to endorse a candidate from each party:
>August 6, 2007
A Union Splits Primary Endorsements
By Steven Greenhouse
CHICAGO — As union leaders gathered here today for the Democratic presidential debate they are holding tomorrow at Soldier Field, the International Association of Machinists announced a novel political strategy: for the first time in its 119-year history, it plans to endorse both a Republican presidential candidate and a Democratic presidential candidate before the two parties hold their primaries.
Rick Sloan, communications director for the 410,000-member union, said that endorsing a candidate from each party, after years of the union just endorsing a Democratic candidate, would improve the union’s ties with the 35 percent of its members who vote Republican.
Mr. Sloan, who is close to the union’s president, Tom Buffenbarger, had kind words for several Republican candidates. He praised Rudy Giuliani for having opposed the North American Free Trade Agreement. He said Representative Duncan Hunter of California was “very good on defending jobs and the impact of trade on our shrinking manufacturing base.” In addition, he lauded former Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas for his ideas on doing more to prepare the nation’s youth for the work force.
Another benefit from endorsing a Republican, he said, might be to get the Republican candidates to focus more on an issue of great concern to the machinists’ union, the effect of trade — often harmful — on manufacturing jobs and wages.
A union endorsement of a Republican candidate for president is extraordinarily rare.
Mr. Sloan said the machinists have invited five Republican candidates – Mr. Giuliani, Mr. Huckabee, Mr. Hunter, John McCain and Mitt Romney — to a union political conference in Orlando on Aug. 27. About 650 of the machinists’ top officials will be at the conference.
Mr. Sloan said candidates would not be considered for an endorsement unless they agree to speak at the conference in Orlando.< |
