Iowa county official jilts Edwards for Obama

Ernie Schiller isn’t afraid to make the ultimate comparison in the Democratic Party. Sen. Barack Obama, he said, reminds him of President John F. Kennedy.

“I remember as a kid that John F. Kennedy was the first president who kind of brought people to their knees thinking about America,” Schiller said last week. “I do believe Sen. Obama offers that hope.”

Schiller is a Lee County supervisor and retired high school teacher. He’s already signed on to serve as a precinct chair for Obama in the Jan. 3 Iowa Caucuses.

The campaign keeps pushing him into the limelight, however, because of a past allegiance. It turns out that, until a few weeks ago, he was backing John Edwards.

Schiller broke with the former senator from North Carolina after watching Edwards’ Iowa poll numbers take a hard downward turn. Now he feels it is important to let his neighbors know.

“I had supported Sen. Edwards all along …,” he said, “but I’m looking for somebody who can take our nation to the next level without any cause for not getting elected, and I feel he’s kind of flailing out there right now.”

The Hawk Eye 11/22/07
http://www.thehawkeye.com/Story/obama_112207

Unions balk at Edwards track record

In 1998, while running for the Senate, Edwards did not come out in favor of repealing right-to-work laws in North Carolina, and he has only opposed a national right-to-work law. While North Carolina is hardly considered to be a labor stronghold, the former senator’s record and his relationship with some unions in the state were used by some unions to judge him as unworthy of an endorsement.

The International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF), which endorsed Sen. Chris Dodd (Conn.), said Edwards’s unwillingness to advocate a repeal of the right-to-work measure was a sticking point for the membership when it was seriously considering supporting the former senator’s bid.

“How do you walk picket lines and be for right-to-work?” Jeffrey Zack, an IAFF official, said. “It’s surprising that it wasn’t disconcerting to more people.

“Ultimately, at the end of the day, it’s results. It’s not what you say. It’s results.”

Edwards has also come under fire for his support for normalizing trade relations with China after he was elected to the Senate and for voting for fast-track authority for the president. Edwards has said since that he regrets both votes, and Wednesday he told the UAW in Iowa that he would reverse trade policies.

Members of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) were clearly impressed with Edwards when he addressed the group this summer, but members from North Carolina and his past positions on trade and right-to-work were ultimately what led them to endorse Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) instead, officials said.

“He walked out of there completely convinced he had our endorsement,” IAM official Rick Sloan said. “What he failed to realize was the jury was still out.

“I think he makes an exceptional closing argument. If that was all the jury ever heard, he’d win every time. But it’s not.”

Sloan said Edwards appeared to be “the natural for us,” but the former senator made some missteps with the North Carolina IAM members who worked to elect him, and his support for normalizing trade with China and right-to-work in his home state cost him.

“These days he’s sounding like Johnny Tremain helping a modern-day Paul Revere going around saying, ‘The Chinese are coming, the Chinese are coming,’ ” Sloan said. “Well, they are — by his gold-plated invitation.”

Sloan added that in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, IAM members who worked for U.S. Air in Charlotte, N.C., were losing their jobs in the wake of lost revenues and corporate cutbacks.

“When our guys were getting laid off after 9/11, he came down and met with the company” instead of the workers, Sloan said.

“Our guys in North Carolina worked really hard to get him there and then didn’t see much of him,” Sloan said, adding that the right-to-work issue is “the highest priority for the labor movement.”

The Hill 11/15/07
http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/unions-balk–at-edwards-track-record-2007-11-15.html

Edwards lost in the cornfields

Is John Edwards in trouble in Iowa? Peg Dunbar thinks so. She signed up as a county chair for Edwards in the northeastern town of Waverly earlier this year, after backing the former senator’s campaign in 2004. Now she has changed her mind and switched to Hillary Clinton. “John Edwards has been in Iowa for four and a half years and he’s in third place,” she says. “He should be in first place. Granted, it’s very, very close. But I don’t see him going anywhere and I don’t go with a loser.”

Dunbar is one of four county chairs—essential figures in any Iowa campaign—who have backed out since being identified as Edwards chairs in a June press release. Ernie Schiller of Lee County says he’s now undecided, Frank Best of Louisa County has switched to Obama and Jody Ewing is supporting Bill Richardson.

snip

The county chairs are not the only losses for Team Edwards. Several other backers, all named in prior press releases, have also defected. Gary Anhalt was named as an “education professional for Edwards” in September, but says he’s now uncommitted. Barton Rule was a former Tom Vilsack supporter who endorsed Edwards, but says he’s now backing Clinton, as is Jay Kleaveland, a rural chair for Edwards in Clayton County.

Polling in Iowa is imprecise, but most show Edwards losing ground of late. No poll has put him in front since August. In the last month he’s been either tied with Obama for second place, or several points behind him in third. Campaigns can always replace individual supporters—but reversing a trend is much harder.

Newsweek 11/19/07 edition
http://www.newsweek.com/id/69573

Sorry, John, it’s Barack’s time

When Mayor Bill Bell introduced Illinois Sen. Barack Obama during a visit Thursday to the Bull City, (Durham, NC) he offered more than the routine welcome. The mayor’s gave an endorsement, too.

“Obama brings a different dimension to the campaign and the country in terms of his vision, the energy he has and his ideas,” Bell said in an interview with The Associated Press. “He was out front in opposing the Iraq War and I think that conflict probably the biggest damage that this country has experienced.”

Bell’s decision might be viewed as a hometown letdown for Obama’s Democratic rival, former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, who lives in nearby Chapel Hill. In 2004, Bell supported Edwards as a candidate for vice president, hosting an event at his home for Edwards and running mate John Kerry.

Bell praised Obama for the “foresight and judgment” to oppose the Iraq War from its outset. Edwards voted for the Iraq War while in the Senate. He has since called that vote a mistake and is a strong critic of the war.

“I have a lot for respect for John. I think he’d make a fine president also,” Bell said. “But, at this point in time, my support is with Barack.”

Barack Obama Report 11/6/07
http://www.thebarackobamareport.com/the_barack_obama_report/2007/11/durham-mayor-bi.html

How Edwards screwed Obama out of NH SEIU endorsement

Look out, John Edwards. That endorsement you got from the State Employees Association, a local SEIU affiliate, might be revisited yet again.

Edwards was caught in a crossfire last week between SEA leaders and dissidents who argued that Barack Obama was the executive board’s real choice.

It will take some slick parliamentary maneuvering for SEA President Gary Smith to block a discussion of this mess when the union’s convention resumes Nov. 17.

The short version of all this is that the union’s executive board voted Oct 23 to endorse Obama, 7-5. The Associated Press reported last week that the union actually called Obama to tell him the news.

A week later, Smith essentially calls for a do-over and breaks a tie vote to send the endorsement to Edwards.

In between was an SEA annual convention that was so tied up in an unscheduled membership straw poll on the issue that it never finished its regular business.

The straw poll ended with 50 undecideds, 23 votes for Edwards, 19 for Obama and 14 for Hillary Clinton.

So the delegates convene again Nov. 17. The meeting is also open to the rest of SEA’s 10,000 members who don’t get a vote.

Jay Ward, SEA political director, said the endorsement is meant to give members direction on candidates. Edwards was at the front all along, and Obama people are just upset, he said.

As for Edwards’ small straw poll numbers, Ward said, “that reflects the kinds of numbers that have been seen among the general electorate.”

Stephen Foster, a board member who was voted out last week, describes the whole affair as “a hijacking of the board.”

He predicted a donnybrook when union members meet again.

“I’m hearing all kinds of questions, and staff at the office say they are being inundated with e-mail and phone calls,” he said. “This is all a sham.”

Union Leader 11/4/07
http://www.unionleader.com/article.aspx?headline=State+House+Dome%3A+Battle+expected+over+SEA’s+Edwards+endorsement&articleId=68ff51d4-c9a2-48ff-ba16-71a5d0fb52a4

If State Employees Association leadership hoped its endorsement of Edwards last week would joyfully erase its star-crossed choice four years earlier, it sure got off to a rocky start.The pick had been weeks in the making, as union leaders originally desired to introduce the chosen one at its statewide convention in Nashua on Oct. 27.
Imagine what Obama was thinking just after stepping off the stage of an Oct. 23 Boston rally with Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick to take a celebratory call from SEA President Gary Smith that the executive board favored him 7-5.

By now, you may know the rest, as www.nashuatelegraph.com first reported. Only a week later, Smith was casting the tiebreaking vote to deliver the endorsement to Edwards by a 9-8 count.

Some troubling questions remain:

• Why would the SEA have four voting members with seats both on the Political Education Committee that reviewed the candidates and the executive board that made the final decision?

• Whether it affected the outcome or not, how do you have one secret-ballot vote on Oct. 23 with one group of directors and the second vote on Oct. 30 with four new board members elected only three days earlier?

• If the national SEIU leadership stayed out of the New Hampshire flip-flop to Edwards, as SEA leaders insist, was it appropriate to have President Andy Stern working the room at the state convention in Nashua? At that event, Edwards narrowly won a nonbinding vote of the rank and file over Obama 23-19, with Clinton picking up 14 and about 50 choosing no one.

After all, it was Stern who only six weeks ago said Edwards “had the edge’’ to get the national’s backing until his own union’s leadership balked and released all locals to make their own decisions.

Even close friends of Smith within the SEA shook their heads at a chief executive they say remained scrupulously impartial right up until the revote, and earlier had privately told associates his favorite candidate was Obama.

Nashua Telegraph 11/4/07

http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071104/COLUMNISTS12/71104049/-1/columnists

According to those involved, the union’s board voted Oct. 23 to endorse Sen. Barack Obama. Union president Gary Smith promptly called Obama with the news.A person familiar with the conversation said it was clear to Obama that the endorsement was a done deal. The person did not want to be named because the conversation was meant to be private.

But the situation changed Tuesday night.

The board, including some new members elected during the weekend, deadlocked 8-to-8 on a motion to endorse Edwards. Smith broke the tie in Edwards’ favor.

snip

Jay Ward, the union’s director, acknowledged the board’s 7-to-5 vote on Oct. 23 for Obama. But he said the executive board returned a day later and wanted to reconsider, especially with the union’s annual convention scheduled later that week.

In a straw poll at the convention, 50 union members said they were undecided or favored no immediate endorsement. Edwards got 23 votes, Obama 19 and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton 14.

That didn’t sit well with Stephen Foster, a board member until Saturday who considered last week’s vote for Obama final.

“The vote was taken and the chair announced that we had a presidential endorsement for Senator Obama. The board then authorized him to call Senator Obama and convey the news,” Foster said. “That should serve as evidence that the sense and intent of the board was clearly in play without question at that time.”

Alanat News 11/4/07
http://www.alanat.com/politics/questions-arise-on-john-edwards-seiu-endorsement-4/

Iowa SEIU “victory” extends John Edwards’ summer slump into autumn

I sat in on a conference call hosted by the John Edwards campaign yesterday. The purpose of the call was to trumpet Edwards’ winning the endorsement of the Iowa chapter of the SEIU, comprised of about 2,000 members statewide. Among the participants were national campaign manager and former congressman David Bonior, communications director Chris Kofinis, Iowa state director Jennifer O’Malley-Dillon, and other senior staff.

snip

So, yes, all of those things are true. And still none of them can erase the central and overriding fact that John Edwards’ not winning the SEIU national endorsement is, quite simply, not winning. It is losing. There is no victory in getting 10 state SEIU chapters to support you when you have spent more than three years working to win the combined support of all 50 state chapters in the form of a national endorsement; far from it. It is a defeat of the first magnitude.

Similarly, Edwards’ announcement late last month that he is opting in to public financing of his campaign, and thereby accepting the spending limits that are a condition of receiving federal matching dollars, was not, as he told CNN, “taking a stand, a principled stand, and I believe in public financing.” This belief would seem to have come to Edwards late in a year when he has been working as hard as anyone to raise campaign cash, and just happened to precede by a few days definitive confirmation that his fundraising numbers have dropped alarmingly from earlier quarters. A victory for principle, or a triumph of spin?

So it is that the Iowa SEIU “victory” extends John Edwards’ summer slump into the autumn, and, as much as anything, serves to highlight the extent to which the Edwards campaign continues to fall short of achieving every single one of its major goals. One has to wonder how many more such victories his campaign can survive.

iPol 10/15/07
http://ipol-2008.blogspot.com/2007/10/how-many-more-victories-can-john.html

Al Gore is not going to run for president. He is going to endorse Hillary Clinton, instead.

But could Gore endorse Hillary, considering her vote on the war?

Gore endorsed Howard Dean on Dec. 9, 2003, when Dean was widening his lead in the polls over — wait for it — Wesley Clark.

“He was the only major candidate who made the correct judgment about the Iraq war,” Gore said of Dean. “He had the insight and the courage to say and do the right thing.”

So considering Hillary did the wrong thing — she voted to authorize the war — why would Gore back her now? Why not back Barack Obama, who opposed the war, or John Edwards, who now admits his vote was wrong?

Because the entire Democratic top tier now has the same position on the war, that’s why. In a recent debate, when asked by Tim Russert whether they could guarantee to pull all U.S. combat troops from Iraq by 2013, the replies were:

“I think it’s hard to project four years from now,” said Obama.

“It is very difficult to know what we’re going to be inheriting,” said Clinton.

“I cannot make that commitment,” said Edwards.

The Politico 10/16/07
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1007/6358.html

Glenn Hurowitz of Democratic Courage endorsed John Edwards

Edwards has already earned the endorsement of several influential environmental leaders, including:National Environmentalists for Edwards Leaders
Scott Rutledge, Nevada Conservation Leader
Lana Pollack, National LCV Board Member*
Lisa Guthrie, National LCV Board Member, Executive Director of VA LCV*
Carrie Clark, National LCV Board Member, Executive Director of NC Conservation Council*
Brownie Newman, Political Director NC Conservation Council*
Nina Szolsberg, President of NC Conservation Council*
Carol Piszczek-Sheffield, Board Member AZ Sierra Club Chapter*
Jeff Anderson, CA Environmental Business Leader
Gail Slocum, Former Mayor of Menlo Park, CA/ Chief Environmental Consultant for Emerging Sustainability Technologies, Pacific Gas & Electric*
Sara Feldman, Vice President for Southern CA, CA State Parks Foundation*
Kevin Mueller, Executive Director Utah Environmental Congress*
Jim Marston, Director of Energy Programs for Environmental Defense Fund TX*
Joseph Minott, Executive Director of PA Clean Air Council*
James Coman, Executive Director of Blue Ridge Land Trust*
Lance Holter, Board Member of HI Sierra Club, Chair of Maui Sierra Club Chapter*
Glen Hurowitz, Principal of Democratic Courage
Jared Duval, Writer, Former National Director of Sierra Student Coalition*
Molly Diggins, NC Environmental Leader
Bill Holman, Former Secretary of NC Department of Environmental and Natural Resources
David Knight, Director of Government Relations of Nature Conservancy North Carolina Chapter*

Source: Edwards 08 Press Release 10/15/07

Edwards has bent over backwards to offer himself …

John Edwards suffered a blow last week when the the Service Employees International Union decided it would make no national endorsement in the fight for the Democratic presidential nomination. But his concerted effort to embrace causes espoused by the labor group — which represents a wide swath of healthcare workers, as well as janitors, various government employees and others — has paid off after all.

SEIU leaders at the state level were given free rein to back a candidate, and early today Edwards was rewarded with the nod from the Iowa chapter. Every little bit helps in the state where the nomination battle officially begins, but the union is not exactly a heavy hitter in Iowa — it boasts only about 2,000 members.

Turns out, though, the move by the Iowans was simply the start of a deluge. This afternoon, SEIU chapters in nine states signed up to help Edwards — including California (656,000 members), Washington state (103,000 members), Michigan (70,000 members) and Oregon (46,000 members).

snip

Even as Edwards basks in such comments, the ghosts of Dick Gephardt and Howard Dean must haunt his campaign in Iowa. In the 2004 Democratic primary fight, Gephardt’s effort in Iowa was powered — almost solely, as it turned out — by support from the nation’s older unions. Dean, meanwhile, had secured the national backing of the SEIU and other newer labor organizations.

Both men saw their presidential hopes effectively end with poor showings in the Iowa caucuses (the surprise of Edwards’ second-place finish was topped only by John Kerry capturing first place). So will it be different this time around? Will help from key labor activists translate into a better result for their candidate on caucus night?

In Edwards’ case, it just might. After running — and doing well — in Iowa last time around, he has done a good job of maintaining a network of loyalists. Aides with other Democratic campaigns, in moments of candor, give the Edwards’ operation a tip of the hat, largely due to the intensity of his backing. So, potentially, the SEIU members who travel to Iowa from Los Angeles and Seattle and Detroit and elsewhere will plug into an efficient, well-oiled network that knows how to make effective use of their time and energy.

It would seem that the Edwards plan for derailing the Hillary Clinton express and overcoming the enthusiasm Obama generates would hinge on such a scenario.

Los Angeles Times 10/15/07
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2007/10/state-by-state-.html

Edwards fails to capture endorsement from union

John Edwards spent four years positioning himself to be labor’s candidate, walking picket lines.

But his efforts did not secure the coveted backing of the 1.9-million-member Service Employees International Union, one of the country’s largest labor federations, which decided last week not to make a national endorsement for the Democratic primaries.

The decision reflects skepticism about Edwards’s ability to capture the nomination, as well as the influence of large SEIU memberships in Illinois and New York, which back their home-state candidates, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, respectively. The SEIU’s move also shows the aggressive efforts by all the candidates to court labor and address their key issues.

snip: For Edwards, the absence of a national SEIU endorsement will likely have ripple effects on the decisions of other unions, according to political observers. Months ago, leaders of Change to Win, a coalition of seven unions totaling 6 million members, including SEIU and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, thought they could make a unanimous endorsement for the primary. In August, Edwards had already clinched one of the coalition’s unions, the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America, with 500,000 members. But the SEIU decision makes a single endorsement by the coalition unlikely, said Change to Win spokesman Chris Ortman.

So far, Edwards has backing from unions representing more than 2 million members, but he is well behind Clinton, who has won support from national and regional unions totaling almost 4 million members.

Boston.com

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2007/10/14/edwards_fails_to_capture_endorsement_from_union/