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The Texas Blue
Advancing Progressive Ideas

The Only Debate With Tailgating (So Far)

It's a little early for any endorsements to come out, but you may not hear of many (or any) labor endorsements during the primaries, no matter who wins tonight's AFL-CIO debate at Soldier Field in Chicago, which George will be liveblogging. Join him tonight from 6:00 PM Central. Join us below for some pre-game talk about NAFTA and endorsements.

America's union workers face what the New York Times calls "a pleasant predicament": the Democratic field is rife with candidates that staunchly support labor, and that labor would be happy to have.

From the Times:

“This is a pro-worker field of dreams,” said Bruce Raynor, president of Unite Here, which represents hotel, restaurant and apparel workers. “The field is much better from a worker’s standpoint than it was four years ago.”

Citing lessons learned from early endorsements of Dick Gephardt and Howard Dean in 2004, lots of the member organizations in AFL-CIO and in Change To Win, the Teamster-led rival group, are hanging back; some major endorsements may not come until October or later.

John Edwards and his populist message are popular among union workers, and he has been a strong proponent for labor basically forever, not being shy at all in his efforts to court their vote. As I'm watching MSNBC today in the office, I hear a lot of talk about how Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama also garner totally respectable amounts of support among union workers.

Much has been made of President Clinton's support and connection to NAFTA, of which labor is not a fan. John Edwards brought up NAFTA and its problems on Monday. The pundits have been discussing whether Clinton will try and distance herself from that free trade program. Back in June, Hillary started talking about NAFTA's downsides, so I guess you could say she's already started.

Labor is an important institution that protects the social contract between workers and business, that guarantees that Americans are faily compensated for their hard work, for producing what makes this country great. I think they could not have picked a more appropriate venue for their candidate forum, and I think everyone's going to be on their game tonight.

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