A PARTNERSHIP OF ONE
“Actually I’m surprised it didn’t happen sooner.” That’s what one
AFL-CIO congressional lobbyist says about the news late last week
that AFSCME, the powerful public employee union, had withdrawn its
membership and sizable funding from organized labor’s fledgling,
grassroots get-out-the-vote group, Partnership for America’s
Families.
Partnership was set up by the AFL-CIO in the wake of the
campaign finance law, which barred unions from participating in
some political activities, including media advertising for specific
candidates or parties and playing a leadership role in party and
union activities simultaneously. The Partnership allows members to
remain active in political campaigns, sidestepping McCain-Feingold
restrictions.
The AFL-CIO set up the foundation with Steve
Rosenthal as its leader. He formerly served as the union’s
political director, and apparently in recent months had clashed
with Gerald McEntee, AFSCME’s high-profile and
power-hungry president. “McEntee wants to be the kingmaker in
Democratic politics, and has the ear of guys like [Sen.
John] Kerry and [Rep.
Dick] Gephardt,” says the AFL-CIO
lobbyist. “Rosenthal has to be thinking bigger, and long term. It
isn’t his job to pick the Democratic candidate. It’s his job to
make sure the Democratic candidate gets elected in 2004.”
Perhaps for that reason, the Partnership, which is focusing on
voter registration and grass roots volunteerism projects, wasn’t
moving aggressively enough or in the direction that McEntee wanted.
AFSCME has been far more political than many of its organized labor
brethren, perhaps because so many of its members are government
employees on the municipal, county and state. Mix that with
McEntee, who recently hosted the big Iowa debate for Democratic
presidential hopefuls, and you have an overactive concoction, more
interested in short-term power-brokering than in the nuts and bolts
of get-out-the-vote planning.
“That’s probably why so many of the Democrats want to be
associated with us, and not the Partnership,” says an AFSCME board
member. “Those AFL-CIO guys are still hanging with Gore. We’ve
already got the frontrunners with us.”
If so, that’s only because McEntee, acting like an overly
friendly high school cheerleader desperate for attention, has been
wooing them.
Meanwhile, all the Democratic presidential candidates have
attended AFL-CIO functions in the past six months, paying fealty to
all “those AFL-CIO guys” as well who control the large block of
voters each candidate knows he has to have to win, if not in the
primary races, then in the general election.
“Basically McEntee wants to have more control over AFSCME
membership activities. That’s the bottom line. He wants to be the
powerbroker for his membership’s vote,” says the AFL-CIO
lobbyist.
And it isn’t as if this is a huge split. McEntee, remains a
senior AFL-CIO boardmember, controlling the umbrella group’s
political activities. Still, as the Democratic primary season heats
up, it will be interesting to watch how AFSCME and Partnership
compete in places like Iowa and New Hampshire and on Super Primary
dates, when allegiances might be working at cross purposes.
MARIN COUNTING
U.S. Treasurer Rosario Marin is now “former U.S.
Treasurer” and heading back to California to launch a campaign
against Sen. Barbara Boxer. Marin has met several
times with White House political guru Karl Rove,
who while not promising to clear the field for her, indicated his
happiness that she was entering the race.
Marin would seem to positioned to at least give the Republicans
something they haven’t had in the Golden State for years: an
attractive, Hispanic candidate capable of running statewide. “At
the least, her candidacy is going to help President Bush in the
longterm out there,” says a state Republican Party operative in
Sacramento. “At most, we’re looking at a candidate Barbara Boxer
probably prefers to not run against.”
Marin is the classic Bush/Rove candidate: a moderate on social
issues, such as abortion, while remaining loyal and true to the
Bush economic and international agenda. That strategy worked
wonders in states like Minnesota and Missouri last year in helping
the GOP retake majority control of the Senate.
Marin was expected to make no immediate formal announcement
about her plans, but fundraisers in Los Angeles, San Diego and San
Francisco were already being planned at this writing.
