The Machinists' decision to endorse Sen. Hillary Clinton -- and Gov. Mile Huckabee of Arkansas -- comes as a surprise to advisers for Sen. John Edwards, some of whom were confident as of last night that the Machinists were on the verge of endorsing them.
"We began this process with invitation to five Democratic candidates and five Republican candidates to come participate in a conversation with candidates. Some of the candidates declined," an IAMAW official said. "They were in depth conversations, held before 700 IAM leaders from around the United States. We conducted a survey of our membership. We also conducted polling of the folks at the site and so we had a pretty extensive outreach program to try to ascertain what our folks wanted to do. And Sen. Clinton received the most support."
** A labor political official not affiliated with the Machinists told me, "They want a winner! And a frontrunner with HRC's pedigree has no downside. Sure Edwards is great on labor but she looks more like a winner."
Now don't get me wrong, as Tom Buffenbarger, the President of the Machinists International, has an awesome name. But this is why labor can't get traction. It doesn't matter to their leaders that Clinton employs a union-buster as her chief strategist, they want a winner.
If you make your endorsement premised on who is most likely to win instead of your principles and/or interests, then you have no principles and/or interests except backing winning candidates. Candidates know this, which is why Hillary Clinton thinks nothing of having a union-buster as her chief strategist. And in the White House, she's going to know that she need fear nothing from the Machinists, because all they want is to be with a winner, and who's more of a winner than the President?
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