The Angriest Man in America

Quiz: Who's probably the most pissed-off guy in America tonight, looking at the Iowa caucus results? No, it's not Howard Dean or Joe Trippi. ("Angry? Moi?") Or Dick Gephardt or his campaign staff. Not that they're not mad, and sad.

The person who I suspect is steaming, raving, "who-got-me-into-this-f--'ing-mess" mad is...

Gerald McEntee of AFSCME. If you recall, back in November, McEntee joined SEIU's Andy Stern to provide the one-two punch of union endorsements to Dean, with the press noting that "AFSCME is the largest union in Iowa, SEIU the largest in New Hampshire." The two unions compete for public-sector members, and their leaders are fierce personal rivals also at odds over the direction of the labor movement. That they would team up to endorse Dean was, far more than Bradley, Gore or Tom Harkin, the signal that Dean had really accomplished something. It was certainly the moment when I started thinking about How to Stop Worrying and Learn to Love Howard Dean.

Yet McEntee was about as reluctant and cynical a Dean endorser as could be. From everything I know (mostly public info), all he wanted was a winner. He didn't think labor owed Gephardt an automatic endorsement unless Gephardt could show that he was likely to win the nomination and the election. First he wanted to endorse John Kerry. Then he wanted to endorse Wesley Clark. But at the end of the day, between pressure from his members, the fact that he couldn't really make the case for electability of any of the others, some mistakes by Clark in asking for the endorsement, Dean's persistence in asking, and the tactical value of the two largest unions representing public employees and health care workers endorsing together rather than splitting, he had nowhere to go but Dean.

The logic was fairly transparent. It was, "OK, it looks like Dean is the guy, and if he's the guy, we get behind him and hope for the best."

Every year, the labor movement tries to play its endorsements to the greatest advantage. It's the only sure hand labor has left in national politics. They understand that the greatest political clout would come from being united, and then, at the most critical time, endorsing a candidate who is good on all their issues, but above all can win the nomination and the election. A friend in the White House. And do it in a way that specifically can showcase the strength of labor in some key states, on behalf of that nominee. There are some differences of opinion about the relative weight to put on ideological compatibility vs. electability -- which is the essence of the difference between SEIU/Stern and AFSCME/McEntee -- but they all basically want to get as much bang out of their endorsement as possible. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Iowa was a huge setback for the way these two unions played their hand. Kerry won despite labor, not because of it, and the labor-backed candidates put together got fewer votes than Edwards. I have to confess, that's the biggest surprise to me. What I thought I learned about Iowa in 2000 was that it's not a farm state; it's a labor state. (Among Democrats, anyway.) And that people don't just show up at caucuses and vote for who they like; they are delivered to caucuses by an organized group, and labor has the greatest capacity of all organized groups. But when the two labor-backed candidates get only 28% combined, less than Edwards, that's a huge setback -- even if Dean can come back and win the nomination. It glaringly shows labor's weakness, even within the Democratic Party -- or, the failure of organized labor to be organized, since even union members went for Kerry.

The real cause of this, though, is probably the level of interest and enthusiasm in Iowa, which made the caucuses seem a little more like a primary. Had turnout been the same as in 2000, the share of the vote that was brought to the caucuses by organized labor would have been good for a lot more than 28%.

McEntee's got to be going crazy that he didn't go with his first instinct (Kerry) or his second instinct (Clark). Even if he'd endorsed Gephardt, it would have been fine -- Gephardt's the labor candidate, but once he's out, labor is free to endorse again, and pick a winner from the rest. One has to wonder whether AFSCME will put its full energy behind Dean in states like New York.

Other than that thought, I don't have a lot of insight into the Iowa results. As I said in my last post, I'm gratified that Edwards at least has a chance to be heard, and while I'm never going to be a gleeful Kerry supporter, hey, if he can get it together and fight back to win the nomination, then he'll be as good a candidate as anyone.

I'm very excited about all this. Glad to see that the State of the Union will be overshadowed by two sort-of-new faces on the Democratic side. And very glad that it feels like we're kind of back to normal rules. Whoever wins will be tested and proven. I'm not worried about negative attacks. Whoever is nominated will face the fiercest barrage in the fall, and I want to see someone who can handle it, not jump off message or start whining, but stand, fight, and make the case against Bush and for a different future.