Five presidential hopefuls talk with the AFT

AFT leaders had a chance to  hear from five of the major 2008 Democratic presidential candi­dates during a May meeting at the National Labor College in Silver Spring, Md.

Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware, former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York each spent about an hour with the AFT executive council. Sen. Christopher Dodd of Con­necticut was scheduled to appear but a last-minute Senate vote kept him away.

"We've got a great group of candi­dates this year," AFT president Edward J. McElroy said. The union's endorsement process for 2008 includes candidate meetings and questionnaires on AFT pri­orities, as well as input from members. Three AFT members, selected through voting on the AFT's You Decide 2008 Web site, attended the meeting to ask their questions. (See box at right.)

More candidates from both parties are invited to the council's July meeting.

Sen. Joseph Biden

Sen. Biden used his time to connect the situation in Iraq with a stalled agen­da at home. Biden, the senior senator for Delaware and a respected foreign policy expert, said the war in Iraq is keeping us from advancing domestic initiatives, including education.

Biden would break with the Bush administration's efforts to join different ethnic groups in a strong central gov­ernment in Iraq. He also said America needs a chief executive who will be an unabashed ally in helping turn back "the war on labor's house"—the well-funded, systematic efforts to weaken union strength in the legislatures and the courts. Biden said he would double funding for Head Start, offer new early childhood education incentives to states and support after-school programs.

Sen. John Edwards

Former Sen. Edwards invited AFT members to envision a president who will walk out on the White House lawn and talk to the nation about how important unions are to the survival of the middle class, to economic security, and to preserving democracy. "I will be that kind of president," said Edwards, "because I believe it to my core."

Both of Edwards' parents were union members, as is his brother today. "The only reason they got healthcare is be­cause they were in a union," he stated. He envisions an America with labor law reform, universal healthcare, education reform, adequate housing, affordable higher education and tax reform.

Edwards would have employers pro­vide healthcare benefits or pay into a gov­ernment fund that would do the same. He would fund health coverage for everyone by rolling back President Bush's tax cut for the wealthiest 1 percent.

He would fix the "dysfunctions" of No Child Left Behind, invest in early childhood education, provide better pay and training for educators, and ensure affordable college for all quali­fied students. He recently introduced a plan, known as College for Everybody, that would get hundreds of thousands of students into college. Right now, the program is privately funded on a small scale in North Carolina.

Gov. Bill Richardson

If Bill Richardson were elected president in 2008, he would be the "real education president" Richardson said he would increase salaries, establish a national preschool program and create special academies to emphasize the importance of math and science.

Richardson's other priorities include withdrawing troops from Iraq, making the United States energy independent and creating good-paying jobs.

The governor, who restored collec­tive bargaining in his state shortly after taking office, said he would be a pro-union president who would support card check nationally. "I believe the American workforce is stronger if it is allowed to unionize," he said.

Richardson also pointed out that in his inaugural address as New Mexico's governor, he had pledged to raise salaries across the board for teachers and sup­port staff, who are "just as important" as teachers—an awareness he credited to AFT vice president Kathy Chavez. And he kept his promise, increasing salaries 6 percent. He vowed to do the same as president.

Sen. Barack Obama

It was Sen. Obama's first meet­ing with the AFT executive council, "but we feel from your background that we already know you," McEl­roy told the former community organizer and civil rights attorney.

For his part, Obama thanked the union because the first en­dorsement before his 2004 U.S. Senate win came from the Illinois Federation of Teachers. "This was at a time when no one could pronounce my name he said.

His chief goals as president, Obama said, would include enacting universal healthcare, overhauling education policy and strengthening national labor law. Opposing NCLB isn't an education policy in itself, he said, "but it's a good start.”

Obama noted that the half-trillion dollars spent in Iraq could have helped education. "We're going to have to act like grownups for a change,'' he said. Otherwise, we'll create "an America that's a little poorer and a little meaner than the one we inherited."

Trying to differentiate himself from the other candidates, he said: "The ques­tion for this union is who you think has the best opportunity not just to win an election but to transform the country. We need someone who can change how America thinks about itself, inspire our country to re-imagine itself. That's some­thing I think I can do."

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton

Sen. Clinton is running for president to help the United States "renew our great­ness at home and abroad" and restore our common mission and goals: universal healthcare coverage, energy indepen­dence, and educational opportunities from preschool through college and beyond.

Clinton, of course, is associated with her husband's effort to promote compre­hensive healthcare reform during his first term as president. "Nobody knows better than I how hard that is," she said, but added, "I know it can be done."

She called education "the passport to opportunity" and said the country has a lot of work to do. On No Child Left Behind, she declared, the AFT will get "no argu­ment from me that we need to change it drastically;' and she vowed to oppose any bill that doesn't deal with funding, testing and supplemental services.

Clinton's remarks also addressed education of the very young and those en­tering adulthood. She supports universal preschool, affordable college, and much more attention on students who don't go to college but aren't getting training to fill many available, good-paying jobs.

"We can't get anything done unless we find the money to do it," she noted, saying one place to find money is by ending the war in Iraq.