Posted on 07/29/2003 9:48:13 PM PDT by JohnHuang2
Entertainment Union Endorses Gephardt
By AMY WESTFELDT .c The Associated Press
NEW YORK (AP) - Democratic presidential candidate Dick Gephardt picked up his seventh union endorsement Tuesday as the executive board of the 104,000-member International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees unanimously backed his candidacy.
It was the first time in its 110-year history that the union, which represents film and television production employees in the United States and Canada, endorsed a presidential candidate.
International President Thomas C. Short praised Gephardt's national health care plan and his opposition to the privatization of Social Security. ``For Dick Gephardt, affordable health care for every American is not a national imperative, it is a moral imperative,'' Short said.
Gephardt, whose father was a Teamster, said he is more in touch with everyday working families than President Bush.
``It is time that we had a White House and a president who have shared the life experience of most Americans,'' said the Missouri congressman. ``This president does not reflect in his policies an understanding of what people are going through everyday.''
So far, Gephardt has secured the support of predominantly smaller unions; the largest was the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, with 720,000 members. But he said he is encouraged about his chances of winning an endorsement from the AFL-CIO when it meets next week in Chicago.
The AFL-CIO's executive council plans to gauge the political temperature of its 65 affiliate unions and whether a single labor endorsement is even possible. A candidate needs to win the backing of unions representing two-thirds of all rank-and-file members.
Gephardt is considered the most likely candidate to get an endorsement if the AFL-CIO enters the primary fray. The federation has granted only two early endorsements: Walter Mondale in 1984 and Al Gore in 2000.
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