Dems Prep Vegas Debate: Labor Balks on Hillary

Las Vegas -- Hillary Clinton maintains a wide lead in statewide polls and has tied up the endorsement of the bulk of the Nevada Democratic establishment, but the New York senator has yet to win the nod from the Silver State's powerful movement of organized labor.

As Clinton and her rivals prepare for tonight's much-anticipated CNN-sponsored debate from the stage of UNLV, Nevada's two most important unions are dragging their heels in issuing an endorsement of any candidate.

Senator Clinton is currently leading Nevada's Democratic polls at 51%, almost 30 and 40 points ahead of challengers Barack Obama and John Edwards, respectively. Clinton has also lined up in her campaign corner an impressive majority of Nevada's leading Democratic elected officials. But the brawny Local 226 of the Culinary Workers union, representing some 60,000 casino employees, seems in no hurry to get in line with Clinton -- or any other of the candidates who have been assiduously courting the union vote.

"We will make an endorsement. But we will make it when we are ready," D. Taylor, veteran leader of the Culinary Workers told The HuffPost. "And we're not yet ready."

With its formidable capacity to provide canvassers, volunteers, phone-bankers, voters and strategic political connections, support from Taylor's union is considered one of the top prizes in Nevada campaign strategizing.

Throughout most of this year, the union had been locked in volatile contract talks with gambling industry management. As the possibility of a confrontational strike loomed, Taylor purposefully played hard-to-get, extracting promises of picket-line support from all of the major Democratic candidates as a pre-condition for even considering an endorsement. "Taylor is a brilliant strategist who played his hand perfectly," said one Vegas Democratic insider. "He wisely held the candidates hostage, making them come begging to him instead of vice-versa. It's a lesson that other interest groups might want to learn."

As of this week, the union reached an agreement with all major Vegas employers (with the exception of the Tropicana Hotel) and though the strike threat has evaporated, Taylor said no endorsement was immediately forthcoming. "We're going to catch our breath first," he said. "Let us enjoy eating our turkey before we move on to opening the Christmas presents."

The subtext of Taylor's message: Let the candidates keep performing for us before we decide.

A similar attitude prevails among the Nevada local of America's biggest union, the 1.9 million member Service Employees International Union. After the national SEIU, which had long leaned toward John Edwards, decided last month to leave endorsement to individual state chapters, different locals jumped behind different candidates. But the 17,000 member Nevada chapter still remains undecided.

"We're still trying to figure it out," said SEIU Nevada political director Morgan Levi in an interview in her Las Vegas headquarters. "Truth is, we never really expected the endorsement to be left up to state chapters and we're still working on it."

Meanwhile, SEIU officials say they are being peppered by constant and growing demands from their Nevada Democratic political allies who have already signed onto rival campaigns. "There's all these people calling us everyday," said one union official. "We just feel totally bombarded and pressured to make a decision as everyone knows just how much we have to offer in terms of support."

There's also pressure from within others wings of the union. The half-million member California SEIU declared itself for John Edwards last month and is reportedly impatient to start flooding neighboring Nevada with staff and volunteers to bolster the third-running Edwards campaign.

The Edwards issue has veritably haunted the SEIU since the former North Carolina senator's campaign failed to break out of third place. Sentiment in favor of the populist Edwards and Barack Obama runs as strong throughout the SEIU as does resistance to simply rubber-stamping Clinton. But with tens of millions of dollars and thousands of volunteers in reserve, the SEIU seems in no hurry to get behind a campaign that might be doomed.

At the same time, there's little palpable enthusiasm for front-runner Hillary Clinton. Veteran nurse Michelle Estrada sits on the executive board of SEIU Nevada and, therefore, diplomatically declines to state her personal preference. But her language overlaps that of Clinton rivals Edwards and Obama when she describes what she will be looking for in Thursday's debate. "Openess and honesty," she said. "Our members felt that during the last debate there was a lot of rhetoric in that room. And they felt that Hillary Clinton was not unfairly beat up. She ought to be able to take the heat if she's going to be up there and not complain about it. This what I've heard from just about everybody around me."

SEIU Nevada is likely to finally make its endorsement in early December -- a month before the early Iowa caucuses and six weeks before the Nevada Democratic primary. How each candidate emerges from the Thursday night televised debate could have a key influence on that decision.

In the meantime, Culinary leader Taylor says he won't be going to the debate. "It's exciting that we're in the spotlight. But I've got a previous engagement, a benefit for cancer research."

Comments

[BUSHsurvivor]

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Hillary just accepted the endorsement of SMART (230,000-member union) in Nevada!

[MrsHaskell]

Am I the only one who's getting sick of all of the nostalgia for the Clinton years? Yes, it was much better than it is now, but for freak's sake, what isn't? From don't ask, don't tell, to the cruel and short-sighted "welfare reform", to half-assed sop-to-big­-insurance health care plane, he was a constant disappointment. He was alarmingly quick to compromise with the Repubs, even after it became clear that they were out to destroy him. As Mandy Pepperidge said to Otter, "it really wasn't that great".

[EdwardEdwards]

Earth To Union Leaders: Endorse Edwards.

It's a win/win.

Think about it.

If Edwards wins nom, he'll likely win the race. He's been insanely pro-Union in his campaign. He's the guy that wants joining a union to be as easy as registering to vote. Does Hillary or Obama say this? Nope.

So if you endorse Edwards, you humiliate the alleged frontrunners. They must then up their rhetoric or wish they did.

For an union type to endorse of vote for Hillary is as asinine as any Christian endorsing a NeoCon for Christian values.

D --- U --- H.

:-)

[lastams]

Goodness I just can’t understand WHY big labor wouldn’t want to support Hillary Clinton.
Let’s see, she supports the extension of Nafta, the importation of slave, er excuse me, guest workers,
The Citigroup privatization of the Peruvian social security system, anti-union elements in Columbia,
A health care system that basically subsidizes insurance companies (those same companies that are refusing care to thousands of seriously ill Americans), and has become the largest recipient of corporate “contributions”in history.
In fact Hillary’s positions on almost every issue place her firmly opposed to the values of working class American citizens. I can’t imagine WHY the major trade unions aren’t flocking to her side.

[msopine]

Perhaps if the attacks on Clinton were more substantive and less vitriolic and personal, I could actually be persuaded. Those of us who supported both John and Robert Kennedy, or way before I was born, Teddy and Franklin Roosevelt and both John Adams, are having a little trouble with the whole dynasty issue. Can we leave that out, and the issue of Bill's adultery (which at least one member in an overwhelming percentage of American couples is also guilty of) and talk specifically about issues that are relevant to this campaign? Clinton's voting record in the Senate is very liberal, certainly more so than my own rotten Senator Dianne Feinstein's. I disagree with Hillary profoundly on Iraq and that's a problem for me, but she is not Lucrecia Borgia, Cruella DeVille or Cinderella's wicked stepmother, and quite frankly all this villification is having the opposite effect on me. I'm actually considering switiching my support from John Edwards to her. Honestly, any time you have to pump up Dick Cheney's favorite talking head, Tim Russert to support your argument that Hillary's evil, you should know you're in trouble.

[ChristianSoldier]

Kucinich is the ONLY hope we have to end this national nightmare.

[ConcernAmerican]

The Clinton years was the BEST, economic boom! BUSH YEARS IS THE WORST!!!!

[Bocababs]

My God...Hillary did something RIGHT this week!! Now...if she can only talk in soundbites at the Debate tonight...Sigh.....

[msopine]

Hmmm, dynasty, fascist, adulterer, raped the country, republican lite, Wal-Mark enabler, and union buster. Never maind that her actual voting record in the Senate is to the left of Obama's, or that when she was in the White House she was accused of being a radical liberal who was pulling her husband towards the left-wingnuts of the party. At last, thanks to the insightful and fearless analysis on the Huffington Post, we know who Hillary really is. Also, wouldn't the headline on this blog have been more accurate if it read "Union Balks at All Democratic Front-runners"?

[EinChicago]

Would any candidate really want teh edorsement of Vegas unions? That's kind of like getting Chicago union supprt. Failry or unfairly, the majority of swing voters/moderates who decide the presidential election equate Chicago and Vegas Uunions with Jimmy Hoffa, and the characters in the movie Casino.

Barak Hussein Obama and Ghouliani already have the mob endorsement, why would anyone else want it?

[kzlager]

20 years of the bush and clinton dynasties have placed america clearly in the third world category. our borders are wide open to slave labor, we can't afford our own military without massive borrowing, our infrastructure is collapsing, our middle class is slowly becoming extinct, the militaryin­dustrialco­ngressiona­l complex is sucking all the wealth out of our treasury, our edcational system is creating millions of illiterate goons, sexual perverts occupy prime time tv and 50 million citizens can't get healthcare. it's time for ron paul or dennis kucinich to run things for a while.

[bayviking]

The News Hour is doing a special on Las Vegas with no mention whatsoever of its ties to organized crime. Clinton, Bush, the CIA rely on orgainzed crime for funding and dirty work. Most people recognize corruption in Mexico and Russia but can't see it in their own backyard.

[oldgringo]

The only surprise here is that there is any surprise at all!
THE CLINTON DYNASTY HAS RISEN TO ITS HEIGHT BY HAVING A "DOG" IN EVERY HUNT, A HORSE IN EVERY RACE, A HAND IN EVERY POCKET, OR IS IT A HAND FOR EVERY POCKET, ALL "GIFTS" GLADLY ACCEPTED, DUELY NOTED, RECORDED AND DEBTS "SECURELY" PAID, except of course, when caught in the act, so to speak....Go figure....

[JPHogan]

Isn't Hillary too in bed already with corporate America for such endorsement as it is corporate America that now owns Las Vegas?

[NoPCZone]

The Edwards campaign hasn't failed to break out of third place- this kind of inane horse-race insider BS has chained it there.

If one is truly concerned about working people in the US there are only two real alternatives on the Democratic side- and that does not include Clinton, Biden, Obama, Dodd or Richardson.

The question I want to see someone tie to BillHillary is this: When serving on the corporate board of the most openly union hostile large employer in the US, Wal-Mart, why didn't you do something to help the workers organize?

At the time Ms Clinton was on the Wal-Mart board, her husband was Governor of the state Wal-Mart was headquartered in and could have done a lot of good for a lot of very poorly paid and treated working people.

Note to Democratic voters and pundits everywhere:
Not a threat, but a promise-
Coronate that Repugnican-Lite Hillary Clinton and I will not vote Democratic, will not work for any Democratic candidate, and might well go help some third party campaign. If I wanted to vote for a Repugnican I would join their party.