Abstract

Labor Warms to Dean

The author looks at why several influential U.S. labor unions favor Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean over his pro-union rival Dick Gephardt. Even as the labor leaders who support him are redoubling efforts to secure the Democratic presidential nod for Dick Gephardt, it is becoming increasingly clear that the former House minority leader is unlikely to secure the coveted AFL-CIO endorsement. The roadblocks to that endorsement are being erected not by the candidates who had been expected to compete with Gephardt for labor's blessing but by the contender who not that long ago was dismissed as too wild a card for traditionally cautious unions: Howard Dean. To be sure, Gephardt retains the loyalty of many key unions. Save Ted Kennedy, it would be hard to find a member of Congress with a longer record of crusading for labor's causes, and twenty major internationals have repaid that loyalty with endorsements and efforts to secure a critical win in the first caucus state of Iowa. But a mid-October AFL-CIO session at which Gephardt had hoped to parlay the support into an endorsement by the full labor federation was canceled after three of the country's largest unions signaled that they were not prepared to make such a move. "They just don't think Dick can win," says a veteran union leader. Dean's "Beat Bush" populism has made him a star at union conventions, and that's paying off.