State of the unions

National Review, Jan 26, 1998 by Stephen Silbiger

Mr. Silbiger was the associate director of legislation for the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees from 1980 to 1988.

WASHINGTON, D.C.

SOME elected officials campaign in order to hold office. Others hold office in order to campaign. President Clinton falls firmly into the latter category. So firmly that even as he begins to fade into lame-duck status, his Administration's policies will once again be determined by the imperatives of a presidential campaign -- Al Gore's. It is the political needs of Clinton's Vice President -- the primaries he needs to win, and particularly the unions he needs to woo -- that provide the best guide to the policies about to be unveiled in the President's State of the Union address.

More than personal friendship inspires Clinton's effort on behalf of his Vice President. If Clinton turns the White House over to Gore, he will be the first Democratic President since Andrew Jackson --apart from those who died in office -- to be succeeded by a member of his own party. Clinton would understandably see this as a confirmation of his political skills and one last, vicarious chance to enjoy the adoration of the American electorate. But just as important in his calculations must be the fact that a Gore presidency would secure a friendly Justice Department as far as the eye can see.

Getting Gore elected won't be easy, despite the formidable advantages of his current office. Neither Iowa nor New Hampshire --the crucial early caucus and primary states -- is favorable territory for the Vice President.

In Iowa, Dick Gephardt, the winner of the 1988 caucus there, will have the aid of the United Auto Workers (UAW) and the Machinists union, the two strongest unions in the state. Neither union relishes the idea of cheap competition from overseas, and both of them dislike Gore for his support of NAFTA and fast track. The UAW and the Machinists are closely allied (indeed, along with the Steelworkers, they are set to merge in 2000), but it is the UAW that is the more formidable force -- and particularly friendly toward Gephardt, going back to the Chrysler bailout in 1980. In New Hampshire, meanwhile, the primary electorate has never been kind to Democratic front-runners (Mondale lost there in 1984, and Muskie almost did the same in 1972).

Thus, the political imperative for Gore is to build a fire wall in the South and in the big early-primary states of Illinois and New York. President Clinton is already helping to build it. To secure the South, the White House must concentrate on blacks and the National Education Association (NEA). Clinton is, therefore, locked into a rigid defense of racial preferences. If he were seen as wavering on that issue, he would be inviting a Jesse Jackson candidacy; and if that occurred, Al Gore's Southern fire wall would leave him trapped in an inferno.

As for the NEA, it is the only union with any clout in the right-to-work states of the Old Confederacy. This union, which has a great stake in the decisions of state and local governments, has developed a first-class political machine. Clinton - Gore strategists surely know that the NEA's endorsement of a little-known governor from Georgia in exchange for a promise to create a Department of Education was one of the major factors in the nomination of Jimmy Carter. To secure the NEA, Clinton must vigorously oppose school choice and push for increased federal aid for education. (Increased education spending might also help win the support of big-city mayors and -- if some of it is earmarked for school construction -- of building-trade unions in the North.)

If Gore is able to hold his native South on Super Tuesday, he will then have to face down his rivals in New York and Illinois. He will be vulnerable on his left in New York. In Illinois as in Iowa, Gephardt will have the support of the industrial unions -- and they dominate Illinois labor outside of Chicago. Moreover, southern Illinois still has a substantial United Mine Worker (UMW) presence. The UMW is dwindling in numbers -- coal-mining isn't exactly a growth industry -- but devotion to the union is part of the culture of the area. And the UMW distrusts Gore, whose environmental policies threaten its very existence. (UMW president Cecil Roberts has already made disparaging comments about the Vice President.)

TO counter Gephardt's strength in Illinois and Gore's weakness in New York, the White House needs the support of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) and of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), which have substantial memberships in both states. AFSCME is particularly important to Gore's hopes. The head of AFSCME in Illinois has built a formidable political operation -- so formidable that Republican Gov. Jim Edgar had to give them a generous new pension deal. In New York, the machine built by Victor Gotbaum, the former head of AFSCME in New York City, is the most sophisticated labor operation in the nation and is critical to turning out the minority vote. As for the SEIU, it is about to affiliate with the hundred-thousand-strong hospital workers' union in New York City headed by Dennis Rivera, a key player in the Big Apple's growing Hispanic community.