Dean Works to Be Labor's Man
Candidate Trails Gephardt in Union Endorsements
By Paul Farhi
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, November 23, 2003; Page A05
DETROIT, Nov. 22 -- 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."
Dean touched down briefly in Detroit on Saturday to speak to a union rally at a local high school. He then dashed to Iowa for an event organized by the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades, a 140,000-strong union that endorsed him in late October. He was joined during the day by the group's general president, James Williams, as well as by the heads of SEIU and AFSCME, Andrew L. Stern and Gerald McEntee. On Sunday, Dean is in New York for another union-sponsored rally.
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.
If volume level is any indicator, SEIU members in New Hampshire are squarely behind Dean. In Iowa and New Hampshire lately, Dean has tended to address moderate-size audiences that are receptive but not wildly enthusiastic. Friday night's rally at New Hampshire Community Technical College was almost raucous, with whistles, noisemakers and a sound system blaring Springsteen tunes.
"He won our support because he has a simple plan," said Paul Stokes, president of the State Employees Association, SEIU Local 1984. "He wants to change the political process, he wants to change the way America sees itself, and he wants to change the world."
Dean gave a version of his standard stump speech, emphasizing his plan for health care reform and reiterating his criticism of President Bush's "borrow and spend, borrow and spend" budget policies. But it has been Dean's style -- the brash outsider running a grass-roots-driven campaign -- that impressed much of the audience.
"As much as I like Dick Gephardt, I don't see him reaching out to people the way Dean has," said Marlene Dechane, a retired state employee. Gephardt "has gone through the old networks, not the grass roots."
Stephanie Zaiser, an organizer who drove up from Boston with two colleagues, said Dean impressed her most when he and other Democratic candidates pitched a union-sponsored political conference she attended in Washington in September. "He was the most powerful speaker," she said. "The others were just politicians. Honestly, it was the same old story. I could have given [the other candidates'] speeches for them. The others are wimps. They don't want to get too left of center. Dean says what's on his mind."
Added her friend Theresa McGoldrick, the president of an SEIU local in Boston, "He's not hiding behind surveys and demographics. He's out there. He's not afraid to say something someone might disagree with." |
