Importance of Union Endorsements and Key Endorsements Left to Be Won

Marc Ambinder has a couple posts up about union endorsements.

First, he writes about the key endorsements that are left to be given out.

1. Former vice president Al Gore. He's said he'll endorse. Last cycle, he picked Howard Dean during the second week of December.

2. Former presidential candidate John Kerry. Here's betting that John Edwards will NOT get this one.

3. Sen. Ted Kennedy -- an endorsement that matters in Iowa and New Hampshire for Dems.

4. The Culinary Workers Local 226 in Nevada. They're in the middle of contract negotiations with Strip hotels right now, but almost every weekend, their elaborate endorsement process continues. Obama and Clinton are said to have an edge, but many rank-and-file members of this UniteHere local like Edwards. There are 60,000 active 226ers.

5. The Iowa Auto Workers. They're endorsing by region. And region 4 includes Iowa.. and Illinois and other Midwestern states. So it's a union that leans in Obama's direction...or maybe there'll be enough Obama support to ward off an endorsement of Hillary Clinton. John Edwards doesn't have much of a shot at this one. The Iowa UAW nod can be particularly helpful in cities like Waterloo, where they have 4,000 active and retired members. Statewide, the Iowa UAW has more than 85,000 members.

Ditto re: contract negotiations that are more important to their members than a presidential endorsement. The UAW

6. The National Education Association -- state affiliates will each endorse a slate of acceptable candidates.

7. Who's missing?

In Iowa, I think the UAW endorsement is very big. Some think Culver's UAW endorsement is what on him the Democratic primary for Governor last year and propelled him to beating Nussle. Obama has an advantage for the UAW endorsement because Illinois is included with Iowa when they make their regional endorsements.

I'd think union endorsements are more important than politician endorsements because a union endorsement comes with volunteers and money attached. Gore, Kerry, and Kennedy have name recognition, but they bring the political machine that unions have.

Ambinder also takes a look at if union endorsements matter anymore and he concludes that union endorsements didn't mean much in 2004 because they were made from the top down and didn't excite the membership base. However, this cycle the endorsements are being made at a state or regional level and is more grassroots.

Most of Gephardt's union endorsements were presented to the rank and file from their executive boards. Few of the unions back then had a true grassroots process to determine who the endorsee would be.

Grassroots legitimacy was never developed, and union members in Iowa wound up voting for their favorite candidates... just not the candidate who happened to be the favorite of union leaders in Washington.

This year, the candidates are fighting union-by-union, even local-by-local in some cases for endorsements.

When John Edwards failed to secure enough support on the SEIU's board for an international endorsement, the union threw the process back to its state councils. And that forced Edwards to work the process -- to do direct member to member engagement, to earn it on the ground.