Craig Files New Appeal »Obama Wins Indiana And Illinois SEIU
At pretty much exactly the same time that the Edwards campaign wrapped up its conference call touting his Iowa SEIU endorsement, the Obama camp sent out a release trying to steal Edwards' labor thunder with a couple SEIU endorsements of its own.
He's picked up the support of the SEIU in Indiana and in his home state of Illinois -- that latter local being one of the ones that stopped the national SEIU from making an endorsement. The campaign's release is after the jump.
The Illinois State Council of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and the Indiana SEIU representing more than 170,000 workers has voted unanimously to endorse Barack Obama for President. The union of healthcare workers, security guards, janitors, public workers, home healthcare and childcare workers has a long-standing relationship with Senator Obama and is proud to support his candidacy.
Tom Balanoff, President of the SEIU Illinois State Council, cited Obama’s commitment to expanding access to affordable healthcare and to protecting workers’ rights as among the biggest reasons for his union’s early endorsement.
In announcing the SEIU’s endorsement, President Balanoff called Obama, “a real fighter for working families with a proven track record of getting things done.” Balanoff also cited Obama’s early opposition to the Iraq War as proof positive that he has the judgment and vision necessary to serve in the nation’s highest office.
Illinois SEIU is widely recognized as one of the most effective political organizations in the state and is committed to helping organize thousands of its members to volunteer on the Senator’s presidential campaign. Already, hundreds of members are volunteering to phone bank, door knock and to travel to neighboring states to support Obama’s presidential bid.
Michigan Democrats might now force all candidates back on the ballot!
October 15, 2007 1:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
Good for him, although Edwards is poised to get Iowa's SEIU endorsement as well as the SEIUs in Nevada, California and probably NH too.
The endorsements are limited by state borders in a way. As I understand it, when the Iowa SEIU endorses Edwards, then it means that SEIU members and resources from other state organizations that endorse Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama (like Illinois and New York SEIU chapters) cannot help their respective Iowa campaigns, according to SEIU rules.
October 15, 2007 2:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
0when edwards didn't get the SEIU endorsement it was reported evrywhere-now that he has received Iowa's Seiu endorsement there is NO RESPONSE-what is the deal with the media? What is the deal with Huffpo? We don't want any media making up our minds or slanting the news-just report it-they are too afraid to even report anything about Edwards unless it is unfavorable-we come to the web to get away from that at corporate news-what's going on? This reminds me of the treatment Al Gore got in 2000-we can't let the same thing happen to Edwards that happened to Gore.
October 15, 2007 2:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
All the Iowa endorsement of Edwards does is prevent the Illinois SEIU from telling its people to go to Iowa and spend SEIU money there. They can email their members to contact the Obama campaign to ask how they can help. And then the Obama campaign can send them to Iowa.
October 15, 2007 2:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Vote Obama.
Educate yourselves at www.barackobama.com
He can and will unite our country!
October 15, 2007 3:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Edwards had over 50% of SEIU Nationwide. It should come as no shock that Illinois SEIU is backing their favorite son. What remains to be seen is how well Obama will do in states he is not from.
Obama has got a lot of mileage out of a stand he took (and didn't have to vote on) 5 years ago. Since that time he's been a master of missing votes and throwing away democratic advantage in the name of nebulous unity.
If you want a real democrat and a real fighter in the oval office, there is only one choice.
Labor's choice.
John Edwards
October 15, 2007 3:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
Rooktoven, The fact is, both are strong labor candidates and the reason IL labor favors this son is that he's been there, on the picket lines with them. So, it's good to have two strong progressive candidates. Let's hope we rally behind whichever has the best shot at the nomination by Feb 5.
October 15, 2007 4:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
How could Obama steal Edward's thunder? Edwards has no thunder.
October 15, 2007 4:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
The Bloomberg/Perot strategy is working to perfection.
October 15, 2007 4:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hey Sargent,
How come you never say Hillary steals Barack's thunder when she announces her 3rd quarter fundraising the same day that Obama gives a major foreign policy speech?
Or how she came out with that baby bond when Obama rallied 24K people to hear him speak in NYC, her own turf.
The only candidate you think that steals any thunder is Barack....please...the media is constantly harping on what Hillary did while failing to grant the same amount of coverage to Barack.
The media is so slanted that they touted her 3rd quarter totals withOUT highlighting the fact that Obama has outraised HRC by $12M dollars. That is the significant news.
Stop with the stealing thunder deal, the only person stealing anyone's thunder is the biased reporting by the blogs, and MSM.
October 15, 2007 5:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
It seems like little dogs, Obama and Edwards are fighting over the small bone of the SEIU endorsements while the big dog is running away with the big bone.
October 15, 2007 9:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
The mainstream media is intentionally hiding the facts surrounding the current civil fraud and coercion suit (www.hillcap.org) against Hillary and Bill Clinton and their agents pending in Los Angeles Superior Court- discovery is set to begin before the new year now that the 2nd circuit allowed Hillary to be dismissed as a defendant (but not as a material witness) because of her first amendment protections for campaign activities.
The 13 minute trailer for the first documentary on Hillary- and this landmark law suit- Hillary! Uncensored- has become the #1 video viewed on Google Video for teh last week- its approaching 3/4 of a million people in a bog based viral campaign.
October 18, 2007 11:01 AM | Reply | Permalink