Service workers' union delays an endorsement
WASHINGTON - The Service Employees International Union has postponed its presidential endorsement until next month, underscoring divisions within the powerful labor group over Hillary Clinton, sentimental favorite John Edwards, and latest star Barack Obama.
Each of the top-tier candidates has support within the 1.8-million member union that includes janitors, hotel workers, and truck drivers. The backing of the service workers' union is one of the most important labor endorsements available, with the organization having provided thousands of volunteers and donated more than $25 million, mostly to Democratic candidates, since 1989.
Edwards has spent considerable time the past couple of years walking picket lines and speaking out for workers' rights, and has won over many of the union's leaders.
Speaking yesterday to the Change to Win labor federation, which includes the service employees' union, Edwards made an impassioned appeal in which he was frequently interrupted by standing ovations. He criticized the Clinton administration, as a way to get at a rival, Hillary Clinton.
"Back in the '90s when we had a Democratic Congress and we had a Democratic president, we didn't get universal healthcare," Edwards said. "No, instead we got NAFTA followed by CAFTA followed by a whole series of trade agreements that cost America millions of jobs."
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Giuliani backs gun rights
NEW YORK - Rudy Giuliani, who sued firearms manufacturers and called for tough gun control as New York's mayor, said yesterday that the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and a recent court ruling framed his current defense of the right to own guns.
"You have to look at all of these issues in light of the different concerns that now exist, which is terrorism, the terrorists' war on us," the Republican presidential contender said in an interview. He also mentioned immigration and border security.
He said his thinking on gun rights also was influenced by a federal appeals court decision that overturned a 30-year-old ban on private ownership of handguns in Washington on the grounds that the Constitution gives individual citizens the right to own guns.
His embrace of gun rights appears to have occurred more recently than the months after the 2001 attacks. He was quoted in 2002 and 2004 - years later - staunchly supporting gun control.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Richardson ads air in N.H.
Just in time for tonight's Democratic presidential debate at Dartmouth College, Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico is starting a new TV ad in New Hampshire that takes aim at the party's leading candidates for proposing to leave some troops in Iraq.
The ad features three liberal bloggers advocating Richardson's position that the United States should pull all troops out of Iraq within six-to-eight months. "Bill Richardson is the only one who would actually end the war," says one blogger, Christina Siun O'Connell.
Richardson is struggling to catch up with the leaders, who are well ahead in fund-raising and in the polls, and who all advocate leaving at least some soldiers to help protect US personnel and perform other missions.
One of those leaders, Barack Obama, meanwhile, is trying to capitalize on his early opposition to the war, which he made clear in a speech on Oct. 2, 2002 in Chicago. This Oct. 2, Obama's campaign plans events around the country designed to remind voters that, unlike John Edwards or Hillary Clinton, he opposed the war from the start.
SCOTT HELMAN
Romney spoofed on Web
Rest assured, this entry won't win. And not just because it goes way over the time limit.
The creative folks at Slate.com came up with a spoof for Mitt Romney's contest for supporters to put together a TV ad for his presidential campaign. The spot borrows from "Band of Brothers," the highly acclaimed series about World War II, to skewer Romney over a comment he made on the campaign trail.
Asked last month in Iowa why Romney's five sons - who are in their mid-20s to mid-30s - had not enlisted in the military, Romney replied, "One of the ways my sons are showing support for our nation is helping me get elected because they think I'd be a great president." The Slate ad shows the sons riding a campaign bus across Iowa and ruminating about fireflies and tourist sites. Voting continues through 11:59 p.m. today.
FOON RHEE 