Labor Day Labor Bloging

John Edwards wins endorsements from the Steelworkers and Minworkers unions. This reminds me that I forgot to post on Hillary Clinton's endorsement by the Machinists union last week. I found this kind of puzzling. Word on the street was that they did this because they think she's going to win, and they wanted to endorse the winner. That makes some sense to me, but if that's what you're going to do then it really seems like you need to do a better job of pretending that's not why you did it. Sending the message the machinists sent -- "we think you're not the best choice on the merits, but we'll support you anyway because we're desperate for access" -- seems designed to minimize the union's leverage.

It seems to me that if your union likes Edwards but thinks Clinton is going to win, then the right thing to do is to stay neutral. Or, even better, is to follow the Firefighters and find a second-tier candidate who's rock-solid on your key issues, though the match between Dodd and the Firefighters was unusually good.

Comments

Matt-

Do you have any "immediate" family that were actually "union members"?

My father was a "steelworker"(USWA Local #2173).

My mother was a "union cashier"(UFCW Local #1059).

Mom's dad was UMW.

Dad's dad was a "Teamster"--

Uncle Ed and Uncle Dick were also Teamsters...

Uncle Mike was IBEW.

Uncle Ty was an "Organizer" for the UMW.

Uncle Bob simply kept his dairy Farm... while he was collecting his "Farm subsidies' as a non-union "OWNER" (and was the only one who actually got "rich"!).

Of my parents generation- 7 of the 9 families were "headed" by a "union" employee-- yet my generation is currently 1 for 28 (there is one 'city' employee amongst us...)

Posted by fletch | September 3, 2007 11:22 PM

why are we taking the world of the people who brought us this (http://www.jellyfever.com/danceparty/safetydance.html t) on the question of what we should do about iraq. he punditry on iraq is approaching the absurd.

Posted by JC | September 4, 2007 12:34 AM

Fletch - I believe Matt's father is a member of the Writers Guild of America. Not a terribly blue collar union, but a union nonetheless.

That being said, union endorsements are mostly about harnessing the union's organizational resources behind a candidate. Whether the Machinists do a good job pretending Hillary is their favorite candidate or not seems like it could, theoretically, be irrelevant to whether the endorsement is useful. So long as they put their organization at her disposal, they might be useful to her, and she would thus owe them favors.

Posted by John | September 4, 2007 1:19 AM

And what the fuck is JC talking about?

Posted by John | September 4, 2007 1:21 AM

Are the machinists going to spend effort helping out Huckabee, who, they co-endorsed, too?

Posted by Neil the Ethical Werewolf | September 4, 2007 1:32 AM

Huckabee scares me. He comes across so affably on television.

Posted by sangfroid826 | September 4, 2007 2:32 AM

If Hillary's as ruthless and hungry and entitled as is commonly believed (I have no knowledge and no opinion) than endorsing her early and on the grounds of the inevitability of her victory would seem like exactly the way to ingratiate with her.

Posted by aleks | September 4, 2007 7:55 AM

Huckabee scares me. He comes across so affably on television.

I'm seriously worried about the prospect of a Huckabee/Clinton general campaign. I don't see Obama or Edwards having too much trouble with Huckabee, but Clinton comes across very, very badly on television, and there certainly isn't enough space between her and the GOP on Iraq for policy alone to win the day.

Posted by Christmas | September 4, 2007 8:06 AM