I’m trying to keep election news t a minimum so we can focus on labor and workers’ issues that get less discussion but, let’s face it, people want to know and politics will dominate even more in 2008. So…though he didn’t get the national union’s endorsement, John Edwards did pretty well yesterday as nine  ten state SEIU councils endorsed him. From the campaign’s press release:

Des Moines, Iowa – Today, Service Employees International Union (SEIU) state councils from Iowa, California, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Minnesota, Michigan, West Virginia, Ohio and Oregon announced they have endorsed Senator John Edwards for president, totaling close to one million SEIU members.

Representatives from several of the ten state councils joined Edwards for a press conference at the Eckstein Medical Research Building in Iowa City. The endorsements will allow these SEIU state councils, which collectively represent over 930,000 members, to organize efforts to turn out caucus goers on Edwards’ behalf within Iowa, and in any other state where the SEIU state councils have also endorsed Edwards. SEIU state councils across the country will be determining their endorsement decisions in the coming weeks.

    Obama pulled down the endorsements of the Illinois and Indiana SEIU operations. No one else has received an SEIU state endorsement. So, so far, clear advantage to Edwards–though, obviously, he would have preferred to snag the national endorsement as a whole.

    I’m still unclear how SEIU will enforce its rules on endorsements that go something like this: a state that endorses can send resources to another state that has endorsed the same candidate but cannot send resources (activists and money) to work on behalf of their candidate in state that has endorsed someone else. Except…an SEIU activist can work on his or her own time anywhere (I guess that’s called freedom of speech!).

    But, let’s say someone violates those rules. In the short time frame of the campaign–it could all be over in about a month once the voting starts–how will endorsement jurisdictions be monitored? I suppose you could believe that everyone will simply honor the principles. Call me skeptical: in the heat of a campaign, when resources are at a premium (particularly precinct walkers and phone bankers), won’t there be a temptation to charge ahead "for the greater good of the country" and deploy people where needed? We’ll see.