Democratic candidates woo firefighters

[Colobo]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070511/ap_on_el_pr/democrats_labor

PORTSMOUTH, N.H. - Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama (news, bio, voting record) told unionized firefighters Friday that he would stand behind them and provide the wages and resources they deserve — and that others in Washington would not.

"They'll praise your work in speeches, they'll honor you as heroes in words, but when it comes to deeds, they make it harder for you to do your job," Obama said, speaking by phone to the International Association of Fire Fighters leadership convention. "Instead of making your job easier, they create other kinds of fires you have to put out."

The Illinois senator was the second of six 2008 Democratic hopefuls to address the powerful union's leaders during a two-day meeting in the state with the earliest primary. Obama said he wanted to attend, but was in Iowa, another early voting state.

[JeffR]

1. Pretty racy post title...

hmm.

[Loge23]

2. Repukes are not their friends

I believe that the national firefighter's union endorsed Kerry in 2004. However, the FDNY (Fire Department of New York) did not.
It's time for the FDNY to recognize who are their friends and who is not.
Perhaps the famous "bullhorn" photo-op (that's what it was) of the idiot-in chief on a pile of rubble (dead bodies included) with a volunteer FDNY retiree after 9/11 still resonates with the dept. But it's the policies of the republican party that have restricted aid and support to people like firefighters, cops, and anyone else blue-collar. And let's not forget the fast-fading Guiliani's ill-fated decision to place the emergency center IN the WTC - and then his decision to pull the FDNY off the pile while they still were pulling their fallen brothers out. Not to mention the decision to LET them work amidst toxic pollution while denying that there was any risk.
I call upon members of FDNY to honor their fallen brothers by repudiating the policies of this administration and the republican party platform.
While they are at it, stop passing around BS emails in the firehouses about Al Gore questioning criminal Ollie North and North's alleged warning about bin laden - both are simply not true. Gore wasn't at those hearings and North meant Abu Nidal. Lies like that don't honor the lost men either.
http://www.snopes.com/rumors/north.asp