*** Edwards Gets A Boost:

[Omaha Steve]

From Chuck Todd, Mark Murray, Domenico Montanaro, and Julia Steers

FIRST THOUGHTS.
*** Edwards Gets A Boost: The Edwards campaign nabbed some solid Democratic credential-filled endorsements over the weekend, including a much-needed nod from the Iowa chapter of the SEIU (which Edwards officially receives today) and an enviro endorsement from Friends of the Earth Action. Is Edwards getting these endorsements because these groups know they'll be more important to him than they will be to resource-rich Clinton and Obama? Regardless, they are important boosts in the arm to the Edwards campaign. But also worth noting, the SEIU Iowa endorsement is good for Edwards (because of how it prevents other SEIU state chapters from coming in), but the two labor groups that matter more in the state are AFSCME and UAW. And Clinton may have inside edge for Gerry McEntee's love.


Watch what you say. I'm a proud AFSCME member. I've met and talked politics with Gerry.

AFSCME President Gerald W. McEntee: http://www.afscme.org/about/740.cfm



Gerald W. McEntee is the International President of the 1.4 million-member American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), one of the most aggressive and politically active organizing unions in the AFL-CIO. Since 1998, nearly 250,000 public service workers have joined AFSCME through organizing campaigns. McEntee was first elected AFSCME President in 1981 and was re-elected in June 2004 to another four-year term.

As a Vice President of the AFL-CIO, a member of its Executive Council and chair of the Political Education Committee, McEntee is a key leader of the labor movement and its political program. Under McEntee's leadership, the federation created its highly successful and much imitated voter education campaigns, which helped increase the number of union household voters to a record 26 percent of the electorate in 2000 (up from 19 percent in 1992).

McEntee has long been a leader in the fight to reform the nation's health care system. President Clinton named McEntee to serve on the Presidential Advisory Commission on Quality and Consumer Protection in the Health Care Industry in 1997.

McEntee is a co-founder and chairman of the board of the Washington-based Economic Policy Institute, the preeminent voice for working Americans on the economy. He has led efforts to strengthen and improve such workplace standards as the minimum wage, the Occupational Safety and Health Act, the Fair Labor Standards Act, and the Family and Medical Leave Act.

For his efforts to improve the lives of working families, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights presented McEntee with its prestigious Hubert H. Humphrey Award in 2004.

Before assuming the presidency of AFSCME, McEntee began his distinguished career as a labor leader in Pennsylvania in 1958. As a union organizer in Philadelphia, he led the drive to unionize more than 75,000 Pennsylvania public service employees, which at that time was the largest union mobilization in history. He was elected Executive Director at the founding convention of AFSCME Council 13 in Pennsylvania in 1973 and an International Vice President of AFSCME in 1974.

McEntee holds a bachelor's degree in economics from LaSalle University in Philadelphia. A native of Philadelphia, McEntee and his wife Barbara live in Washington, D.C.