EDWARDS WINS SEIU STRAW POLL. Leave it up to a blogger to spill the beans. As SEIU members predicted on Monday evening, John Edwards won the non-binding SEIU membership straw poll, according to a blog item posted by Robert Haaland, a political organizer for SEIU Local 790, on the group blog Left in SF. The SEIU leadership has refused to formally identify the straw poll's winner, but two less senior sources in positions to know confirmed the result Haaland reported.
SEIU president Andy Stern told reporters on a conference call following today's meeting of the union's executive board that "there are a number of people who were more than ready to make a decision," and some "who would have preferred we endorsed today." Other SEIU executive board members felt that they needed more information, however, so the entire 64-member executive board will be hearing presentations from the Edwards, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton campaigns -- the finalists for the endorsement -- in Chicago on Monday about what their strategies are for winning 270 electoral votes.
My sources tell me that there is and has long been great enthusiasm for Edwards at the level of the SEIU leadership, and, now, with the support of the membership running in his favor as well, the main concern some people have is that he may not be able to win the primary, let alone a general election contest. After the experience of endorsing Howard Dean last cycle, SEIU leaders want to back a winner as well as someone who supports their agenda.
(Marc Ambinder is reporting that Edwards and Obama were the top two straw poll vote getters.)
Monday will be a chance for Edwards to argue how he's going to win and to soothe remaining anxieties about endorsing him, and for Obama and Clinton to make more compelling cases for their own candidacies that would undermine support for Edwards. It's unlikely that the SEIU would endorse Clinton, and while there has been a surge of support for Obama, he has not courted the group as assiduously as Edwards and some board members are also less than clear on how he plans to win the primary, let alone the general.
The executive board "was as enthusiastic about supporting a pro-worker candiate for president as our members were," SEIU Secretary Treasurer Anna Burger said on the call with reporters. Added Stern: "Now we want to dig down on who is in the best position to win."
--Garance Franke-Ruta
