Covering the AFL-CIO Presidential Forum

Although intended for union members and their families, I received a ticket given out by the John Edwards campaign to supporters and attended the AFL-CIO Presidential Forum at Soldier Field stadium in Chicago Tuesday night. The forum featured 7 of the Democratic candidates. The only democratic candidate missing in the forum lineup was former Senator Mike Gravel, who, reportedly did not return the AFL-CIO questionnaire required of all the candidates in time to be included.

Minutes before the start of the forum, Edwards pulled up to the curb outside the stadium seated in a green minivan: his same mode of transportation on Saturday when he appeared at the Congress Hotel on Michigan Avenue in Chicago to walk the picket lines with union members before his appearance at Yearly Kos at McCormick Place. With minutes to go before the start of the forum, he exited the van, and shook hands with supporters as he made his way into the side entrance of the stadium.

Once inside, I managed to find a seat out of the still-blazing sun, in one of the top rows with a great view of the entire stadium audience. It was a huge crowd, an anticipated 12,000, but it was difficult to tell if the number was anywhere near this. Looking around, you could see a patchwork of brightly colored t-shirts displaying various union emblems and slogans, people of diverse backgrounds, families and many children. Some union members began chanting their union's name back and forth prior to the start of the forum, while candidate's prepared videos ran on the jumbotron.

MSNBC's Keith Olbermann, moderator for the forum, tried several times in the beginning of the broadcast, to ask the audience to politely keep the applause to a minimum, but it became a futile endeavor and he gave it up after several minutes.

Some impressions of the candidates performances:

Congressman Dennis Kucinich, who appeared to much more energized this time around, received copious applause, at times, on his responses, presenting himself to the attendees as the "working person's president" and relished the applause for whether he would scrap NAFTA or fix it, by proclaiming loudly to all, "Listen to the workers. Listen to the words of the workers of America."

Former New Mexico Governor, Bill Richardson, unintentionally received one of the bigger laughs of the evening from the audience early on while thanking the union members for their support of his campaign, he ended by saying, "and I will continue taking your financial support."

Richardson later received a few more chuckles when he described who his vice president would be. "My vice president would not be Dick Cheney. In fact -- I would not have -- my vice president would be a member of the executive branch."

Edwards, continuing the discussion on how out of touch Hillary Clinton may be with ordinary citizens, not of the Washington or wealthy variety, made a clear reference to her cover photo on June's Fortune magazine which accompanied this article.
"But the last thing I want to say -- and I want everyone here to hear my voice on this -- the one thing you can count on is you will never see a picture of me on the front of Fortune Magazine saying, "I am the candidate that big corporate America is betting on." That will never happen. That's one thing you can take to the bank."

Senator Hillary Clinton, invoked the name of George W. Bush and his administration in several instances and refrained, for the most part, in getting into it with any of the other candidates onstage. She may be trying to tone down the competitiveness that the mainstream media have been playing up in recent weeks. She vowed to literally clean up the White House, saying "and I'm going to ask people to come to Washington. Bring your brooms. Bring your vacuum cleaners. We've got to clean the place out and get to work together."

Senators Chris Dodd and Barack Obama, however, did have several somewhat heated exchanges on Obama's view recent statements on how he would deal with Pakistan and General Musharraf if he were president.

Dodd urged patience with Musharraf, saying "while General Musharraf is no Thomas Jefferson, he may be the only thing that stands between us and having an Islamic fundamentalist state in that country. And so what I'd like to see him change -- the reality is if we lose him, then what we face is an alternative that could be a lot worse for our country."

Senator Joe Biden, challenged the authenticity of Edwards support of labor unions, indirectly questioning Edwards' record without actually naming him. He contrasted this with, what he described, as his own long record of support for labor.

"Where were you the six years you were in the Senate? How many picket lines did you walk on? How many times -- look at our records. Look at our records. There's no one on this stage, mainly because of my longevity, that has a better labor record than me. The question is, did you walk when it cost? Did you walk when you were from a state that is not a labor state? Did you walk when the corporations in your state were opposed to you? That's the measure of whether we'll be with you when it's tough, not when you're running for president in the last two years, marching on 20 or 30 or 50 picket lines."

Overall, a close look at the candidates in person can't be beat. Whether it was the overbearing heat, the proud and loud union members, or the candidates' distinct awareness that the labor vote could be crucial to their White House quest, there was definitely a sense of tense urgency to Tuesday night's discussion.

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