Thursday, February 14, 2008

SEIU Expected to Endorse Obama Friday

From The WSJ...
The Service Employees International Union, one of the most politically active unions, is expected to announce a national endorsement for him, according to people familiar with the matter. The move would give him organizational support in Ohio and Texas in March.

SEIU President Andy Stern and the executive board of the 1.9 million member union met via conference call Thursday evening and union officials were voting following the meeting electronically and by fax, according to union officials. A spokeswoman for SEIU couldn’t be reached to comment Thursday night.
More Mo for O.
Some of the divisions within the union have come down to geography, with SEIU officials in Illinois backing Obama, and those in New York supporting Hillary Clinton, for example. Many others inside the union had supported former North Carolina senator John Edwards, who dropped out of the race prior to the Feb. 5 Super Tuesday primaries.

Obama has been slowly catching up to Clinton when it comes to union endorsements. He scored the 1.3 million member United Food and Commercial Workers union earlier on Thursday. In early January, he also received the backing of Unite Here. The UFCW, Unite Here and SEIU all belong to the Change to Win Federation of unions that broke away from the AFL-CIO in 2005.
I believe this makes an Edwards endorsement of Hillary that much more unlikely.

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