January 27, 2007
SEIU Meets The Candidates, Praises Mitt Romney
This weekend, the 60-member SEIU exec. board is meeting with 8 Dem WH candidates during their annual exec. board meeting this weekend at Gallaudet University. On Friday, they met with Sens. Clinton, Biden, Edwards, Obama and Kucinich.
SEIU, you'll recall, is the largest most innovative union in the country.
SEIU Sec./Treas. Anna Burger said that the ’08 cycle “has allowed time for candidates to learn more about our members and our members about our candidates.” The union is starting the endorsements process so early so that SEIU can be part of the primary process and “make them the best candidate they can be for working families,” she said.
The candidates were given as much time as they took to speak and answer questions about the “issues of the working family,” which include health care, social security, immigration, and the war. The Dems’ three leading candidates—Clinton, Obama, and Edwards—impressed the members, said one attendee; Obama and Edwards even took an important step and “worked the crowd.” (One attendee implied that Sen. Biden talked too much.) Two attendees said that Obama's answers to questions, particularly on health care, impressed members of the executive committee the most.
The response from the Dem candidates so early shows how important the labor vote is, especially with the union-heavy IA and NV listed as an early primary state.
On 3/24, SEIU and the Center for American Progress will host a bipartisan health care forum in Las Vegas with the Center for American Progress.
As part of SEIU endorsement process, candidates will spend a day with a member in IA or NH to “experience what they experience.” Burger: “We think that it's really important for all candidates, Democrats or Republicans, to spend time with our members learning what it feels like to be worried about your kids having a worse life.” Candidates will also answer specific questions that will be distributed by videotape to the SIEU’s 2M members.
Burger said that she did not expect an endorsement to come out before Sept. and that the SEIU will look engage all of their members and look at both Dem and GOP candidates. [RIKI PARIKH]
Health care is a big issue for SEIU. At the March forum, Burger said that they will work hard to bring candidates from both parties together for a discussion of the problems. She said of HRC: “It is clear that she learned a lot of lessons,” and she made clear “her effort to bring people together.” On ex-MA Gov. Mitt Romney’s health care plan: “You have to give him credit for it. He was willing to step up and do something.” She said the SEIU would “love to here Mitt Romney talk about how he wants to expand” health care.
Sen. Chris Dodd (CT) and Govs. Tom Vilsack (IA) and Bill Richardson (NM) will attend the meeting on 3/25. The board is also expected to pass a resolution on the war, opposed to the Bush surge.
Posted at 10:12 AM
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