http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/03/29/opinion/main2622590.shtml(The New Republic) This column was written by Bradford Plumer. In a spacious Hilton ballroom Wednesday, surrounded by middle-aged construction workers with their arms folded and collars unbuttoned, Joe Biden is barking into his microphone. "With or without your endorsement," he declares, "I'm going to be the best friend labor has ever had in the White House!" It's an audacious claim — FDR? Harry Truman? What? — but hardly out of place. After all, the AFL-CIO's Building and Construction Trades Department (BCTD) has invited the various Democratic presidential candidates to their annual convention in Washington, D.C., so that 2,500 labor bosses from across the country can size them up. In the 2004 primaries, many of the building trades unions had backed Dick Gephardt early on, only to watch his campaign fizzle in Iowa. They don't plan on making the same mistake twice. "This is only intended to be a first impression," BCTD President Edward Sullivan insists as the day draws to a close. This time around, they plan on making the candidates jockey for their support. They want to be king-makers.
It would be fair to say that organized labor is enjoying a resurgent status within the Democratic Party: The 2006 midterms ushered in a fresh class of populists — Sherrod Brown, Jim Webb, Heath Shuler — who toe the labor line on issues ranging from trade to health care to CEO pay. Nancy Pelosi made a point of shepherding card-check legislation — which would make it easier for unions to organize — through the House. Even the Democratic Leadership Council, once the bane of liberal interest groups everywhere, has started talking up the importance of unions as a way to reduce income inequality. But what does this emerging dynamic mean for the presidential race? John Edwards, after all, has long cornered the market on economic populism — what with his "Two Americas" speech and work on poverty over the last few years. And, if the BCTD event is any indication, the rest of the candidates are still figuring out how to play catch-up on this front.
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., speaks to the AFL-CIO's Building and Construction Trade Department in Washington on March 28, 2007. (GETTY)
Edwards speaks first at the convention, and is obviously the favorite son. The crowd offers up a thunderous standing ovation, the labor leaders onstage all pump his hand enthusiastically as he approaches the podium, and he can barely say five words without being drowned out in applause. It quickly becomes apparent that Edwards, more than any other candidate, has a talent for rendering working-class concerns in vivid strokes. He sketches a story about an uninsured working man who comes home after a second shift to feel his son's fevered forehead. If worse comes to worst, Edwards notes in hushed tones, "This man may have to go to a hospital and beg for health care." His voice rises like an indignant preacher, and his fist jabs the air: "Beg for health care — in the United States! It doesn't. Have to. Be. This. Way." A roar seizes the audience. After promising that, as president, he would sign card-check legislation and prevent businesses from hiring permanent workers to replace strikers, he notes that he's the only candidate with a "detailed health care plan." The crowd swoons.
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