What do you do when presidential hopefuls all sound the same?

By Mark Gruenberg
Press Associates
(CHICAGO)--As they listened to the top three Democratic presidential hopefuls at their convention in Chicago, the 1,000 Change to Win delegates jammed into the biggest ballroom of the Hilton Hotel faced a question all unionists are wrestling with in this accelerated presidential primary season: What do you do when they all sound the same?

For if one point stands out in the remarks by Sens. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) and former Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.), it’s how they agree with each other and with unionists on issues ranging from the right to organize to labor rights in so-called free trade treaties to health care reform to you name it.

The same can be said of the other four Democrats, whom Change to Win has eliminated from its consideration. One top Service Employees officer told PAI that Sens. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) and Joe Biden (D-Del.), Gov. Bill Richardson (D-N.M.) and Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) are out because they barely register in opinion polls and among CTW members. Like the top three, those four agree with workers on the issues.

So what’s an unionist to do?

The answer can be twofold: One is to look for differences around the edges. Obama’s health care plan, for example, covers only kids, not adults. Edwards says Clinton would discuss health care with the drug and health insurance lobbies, which have caused the health care problem in the first place. And that’s just one issue.

The other, brought up by an AFSCME delegate after its political activists’ confab earlier this year, is to try to gauge the electability of each hopeful. It may be fine in your gut to agree with a Dodd or an Edwards or a Kucinich on health care or the war in Iraq if you’re a liberal or progressive, he said. But can they appeal to the whole U.S. and win?

Conversely, is Clinton so polarizing that she automatically turns off half the country, as polls now show? And on the other hand, she’s been through 15 years of hell from the GOP and the Radical Right, which never accepted that her husband was elected president, even before the right’s takeover of Congress in the 1994 election.

Unlike the others--and Clinton makes this point on the campaign trail--she knows how to hit back, and is tough enough to do so. She realizes the other side will stop at literally nothing to lie, cheat, steal and scheme to keep power for its ideological agenda.

In short, Clinton may be a polarizer but may also be the only one hard enough and skilled enough to repel expected attacks--attacks like the libels, courtesy the Bush regime and the Radical Right, that brought down Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) in the 2000 GOP primaries and Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), the 2004 Democratic nominee.

We can’t measure electability, which nobody specifically raised in Chicago, but we can measure those differences around the edges on the issues. Here are some:

* Health care. In addition to pointing out that his program and Clinton’s cover everyone, Edwards also said how he would pay the expected $90 billion-plus cost: Repealing Bush’s tax cuts for the rich. He criticized Clinton for taking money from the lobbyists. When former President Bill Clinton listened to lobbyists, “We didn’t get health care, we got NAFTA and CAFTA,” Edwards said of the anti-worker trade treaties.

Obama said his health care plan--drafted without the lobbyists--covers kids only because its other aspects would make health insurance “available and affordable” to all adults. He stated his plan would “cut an average family’s premiums by $2500 a year.” He also would ban private equity firms that buy health care facilities--such as the sale of the Manor Care nursing home chain--from cutting health care workers to pay for deals.

Clinton said she learned from her failed health care plan of 1993-94 that voters do not want government-run health care. She, like Edwards, would require everyone to buy health insurance. Edwards has subsidies for the poor. All three rejected universal, single-payer, government-run health care--eliminating insurers, their premiums, profits, overhead and denial of coverage--that Kucinich advocates. Obama did not say how he would pay for his plan. Clinton said hers is paid for by cutting administrative spending.

* Worker rights. All three top contenders promised, again, to sign the Employee Free Choice Act, the labor-backed bill designed to help level the playing field between workers and bosses in organizing drives and bargaining over first contracts. They differed on what they would do to help enact it.

Both Obama and Edwards promised to walk picket lines even after they enter the White House, with Edwards adding he would “stand on the White House lawn” and explain the importance of unions to preserving and expanding the U.S. middle class--including non-union workers. He also said he would take that message to hostile groups, such as the Chamber of Commerce, arguing that it’s in their best interests, too. If a lawmaker opposed the bill, Edwards threatened to campaign for it in the district.

Clinton said she’d use the bully pulpit of the presidency to convince the country about the need to protect worker rights by passing the Employee Free Choice Act. That would include town hall meetings, other forums, speeches and similar methods.

Obama went beyond the Employee Free Choice Act, reminding the crowd of another worker right: To be treated under the law as a worker with rights, not an “independent contractor” without them. The Illinoisan told the group he recently co-authored legislation to close the tax loophole that lets firms call workers “independent contractors,” thus escaping payroll taxes, Medicare taxes and workers’ comp payments. Clinton’s not on the independent contractors bill; Edwards is no longer in the Senate.

Edwards went beyond EFCA, too. “Nobody--nobody--should be able to walk through a picket line and take your job away from you,” he declared, in a statement to outlaw permanent striker replacements. That got him a big roar and rhythmic clapping.

* Experience. Clinton argued she has the experience to take on the Washington lobbies, and the Republicans, and beat them on issues ranging from health care to trade to worker rights. She cited her previous 1993-94 health care fight and her lessons from that battle. “While they will have a seat at the table, we’ll make sure they’re not making the decisions,” Clinton said of the health care lobbies.

Clinton became senator in 2001, and also served eight years as First Lady, after a career of activism in Arkansas. She doesn’t say so on the hustings, but that included sitting on the board of the state’s--and the world’s--largest corporation, Wal-Mart.

Edwards and Obama tried to turn experience on its head. “I might not have the experience Washington likes, but I’ve got the experience America needs,” said Obama, who became an U.S. senator in 2005, following service in the Illinois legislature. “If you want real change, you have to change your politics as well. You can’t keep doing the same thing over and over and have a change,” he added.

Edwards also decried Washington expertise. His sole elected office was one 6-year Senate term. Washington experience brings Washington lobbyists, and they--Edwards said--are what’s wrong with the system. That’s where he used his health care-vs.-NAFTA line. Neither Edwards nor Obama take campaign contributions from lobbyists; Clinton does.

* Trade. All three candidates said future trade treaties, unlike NAFTA and CAFTA, must include enforceable provisions for workers’ rights. Unlike Kucinich, they would not dump the pacts. In past speeches, they called for fixing them instead.

“The first question for any trade pact should be: ‘Is it good for American jobs?’” Edwards said. On a specific trade issue left over from NAFTA, he added: “We need a president who will stand strongly against Mexican trucks coming across our border” and roaming all U.S. roads. They’re not safe,” and they undercut the Teamsters’ organizing drive among port truck drivers, he said. IBT leads the safety-first campaign against Mexican trucks.