Steel, mining unions endorse John Edwards in a Labor Day announcement

[Bluebear]

"This isn't good."



PITTSBURGH – In a city that still maintains strong ties to the steel and mining industries, Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards received the endorsement of two powerful unions that represent their workers.

Today the United Steelworkers and United Mine Workers of America, which have a combined 1.8 million members, threw their support behind Mr. Edwards. His campaign said the endorsements gave him “the largest bloc of union support” of any of the presidential candidates so far.

In a statement announcing the Labor Day endorsement, the steel union cited Mr. Edwards’s electability in the general election — a theme his campaign has been pushing as a way to set him apart from top rivals Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama.

“The union movement is not just important for the past, it is crucial to strengthening and growing the middle class in America, crucial to lifting millions of Americans out of poverty,” Mr. Edwards said while visiting a region of the country where the steel and manufacturing businesses have declined.

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/09/03/steel-mining-unions-back-edwards/?hp

[saltpoint]

1. It's my hunch that John Edwards is deeply proud to have the endorsement

of these groups, whose members embody the causes the Edwards campaign has exalted.

Recommended.

[Bluebear]

2. Edwards is a Democrat that acts like a Democrat.

In the "old" sense of the word. I think that is why after all was said and done I have settled on him as a candidate to support right now.

[saltpoint]

3. If you are in the Edwards audience his campaign is that much stronger.

It felt to me as if he was really getting through in Iowa in those small town-meeting venues in 2004. He didn't have any money and the polls were all over the place. Gephardt was a shoe-in. No wait -- it's Dean. Yep, Dean's going to finish first. Then came the Kerry surge. It was a wild environment out there in 2004. But Edwards' crowds seemed to like what they heard. I think he and Elizabeth connected emotionally with a lot of people in Iowa.

It's going to be hard-fought turf this time also.

[Hieronymus]

4. This is great news. CNN just reported that at this time in the last

election cycle, nobody but Kerry thought he'd be nominated.