US Democratic
presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) greets
supporters after a roundtable discussion at Bertha Miranda's
Mexican Restaurant in Reno Jan. 12, 2008.
The tight race between Hillary Rodham Clinton and
Barack Obama has opened surprisingly deep and bitter divisions in
the ranks of organized labor, it was reported on Sunday.
Though unions have divided over presidential candidates in the
past, labor insiders say the closeness of the Clinton-Obama race
has made this year's divisions unusually bitter, the Los
Angeles Times said.?
The past few days have seen rival union leaders flying
planeloads of last-minute volunteers into key states, accusing each
other of trying to disenfranchise members, and even launching open
attacks on rival Democratic candidates, the paper said.
In Nevada, unions backing Clinton are crying foul because some
caucuses will be in casinos and hotels where a pro-Obama union's
members predominate -- helping that union's members and potentially
discouraging others.
Interunion tension may be most visible in Nevada, where Clinton
and Obama hope for gains after splitting Iowa and New Hampshire.
And Nevada,?the third state to select Democratic delegates
thisyear, ranks among the most unionized Western states with more
than 13 percent of all workers belonging to labor
organizations.
Democratic presidential
candidate Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) thanks supporters of his
campaign after delivering coffee and doughnuts to them at the
Jewett Street School polling place in Manchester, New Hampshire,
Jan. 8, 2008, on the day of the New Hampshire
Primary.
Meanwhile, inside the American Federation of State, County and
Municipal Employees (AFSCME), which has endorsed the New York
senator and is leading the charge for her in Nevada, several
officers are protesting the union's decision to run negative ads
against Obama, the Illinois senator.?
Organized labor is probably the single-most important part of
the Democratic Party's election machinery, providing thousand of
campaign workers and millions of dollars for sophisticated
get-out-the-vote efforts and others.
It has also made the process much more expensive and thus raised
the stakes for union leaders and their members.
Many labor leaders say this year's competition is healthy, a
sign of how badly Democrats want to retake the White House. They
predict unions' support for the Democratic nominee will be all the
stronger in November.
Democrats' hostility toward the Bush administration is a
powerful force for unity. But pre-nomination splits have not always
healed. In 1980, when Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts
challenged President Jimmy Carter for the party's nomination, the
split contributed to Ronald Reagan's victory. And Richard Nixon
defeated Hubert Humphrey after Democrats split over the Vietnam
War.
If Obama becomes the nominee, "it could dampen enthusiasm" among
Clinton's union backers because of gnawing public disagreements,
said Lawrence R. Scanlon Jr., the political director of the AFSCME,
which had already flown 100 paid organizers to Nevada and planned
to add 100 more, according to The Times.
(Xinhua News Agency January 14, 2008)
