The New Republic and CBS News are both reporting that Howard Dean is going to win the endorsement of the SEIU. The SEIU(Service Employees International Union), is the largest union involved in the AFL-CIO.
"It's Howard Dean or no one," said a spokesperson for the SEIU. "He’s the only one with momentum, the only one who there’s any passion for on the board."
The New Republic reports that Andy Stern, president of the SEIU, said, "It's come down to the one candidate who has demonstrated enough support among our members, which is Howard Dean."
This endosement is a major blow to the Gephardt campaign, who thought they could gain some much needed momentum by getting big union endorsements. Also, this most certainly gives Dean a bump in Iowa, which is a blue-collar state. This endorsement gives Dean the votes of many health care workers, and it validates his candidacy with many minority voters.
This endorsement has to be extremely bad news for every other Democratic candidate. If anyone believed that Dean's insurgence would eventually self-destruct, well, what's Plan B? Somebody better have a Plan B. Because it looks like Dean has a commanding lead in New Hampshire, and with this SEIU endorsement it looks likely that Dean will get Iowa as well. I guess all the candidates could just take the position that one Democratic candidate's adviser took, "It's done. It's Dean."