With hundreds of union members in one room, it's only fitting each candidate tried to show he's the better friend to organized labor.
Dennis Kucinich: You're looking at a real labor president here.
Joseph Biden: If I'm elected president of the United States, the steelworkers will have the best friend as President, they've had in the history of this country.
John Edwards: It's not enough for politicians to appear before you just when they want your support. The question is are they with you in their battles?
Congressman Dennis Kucinich, Senator Joseph Biden, and former Senator John Edwards each took the stage for about an hour, and it was clear there are few significant policy differences among the three candidates. Rather, it was more a difference in emphasis. Biden has positioned himself as the foreign policy candidate, and to that end, put Iraq first in his speech. He said the war there is the biggest obstacle to dealing with domestic issues.
Joseph Biden: Until we deal with that war, we're not going to have the flexibility to deal with issues and opportunities we face at home.
Edwards put those domestic issues up front. He drew the largest crowd of the three candidates and generated a lot of applause for his proposals to raise the minimum wage even higher, and to provide healthcare for all Americans.
John Edwards: How about if we actually have truly universal healthcare in the United States of America, for every single man, woman, and child in this country. Required, mandated by law… (applause)
Indeed, healthcare is shaping up to be one of the most important issues of the 2008 campaign, and it was front and center at this forum. Biden says it's a moral obligation to take care of the uninsured. Kucinich said healthcare should be considered a basic right in a democracy. That all sounds good to Bryon Bell, a steelworker from the Canton area. But his concerns are more practical.
Bryon Bell: Every time we go to the table to negotiate, talking about working conditions, safety in the workplace, our employer comes back with, 'our healthcare costs are killing us.' And they're not lying. Healthcare costs are killing 'em. And, in order for us to be competitive, we need to solve this as a nation.
Bell says he came in as an Edwards fan, but was impressed with Biden, and now has some thinking to do.
Universal healthcare was not the only proposal that pleased the steelworkers. All three candidates point to alternative energy investments as a way to create jobs. They are in favor of plans to make it easier to join unions. And, each pledged to reform trade policies to benefit American workers. Both Edwards and Kucinich want to ditch the North American Free Trade Agreement. Kucinich had his own catchy proposal for a replacement.
Dennis Kucinich: It begins with a program that I'd like to affectionately call 'Hafta.'
Yes, that's hafta with an H. Kucinich says leaving NAFTA is just the first installment.
Dennis Kucinich: Number 2: we have to withdraw from the WTO, Number 3, we have to have trade based on workers rights, and Number 4, we have to have an American manufacturing policy to begin with.
As organized labor has declined over the past few decades, many politicians have stopped specifically referring to unions, and opt instead for broader phrases such as "working people." Joseph Biden says he won't use euphemisms.
Joseph Biden: Why can't they say the word union! Union! Union! Just. Plain. Old. Union!
John Edwards says he too will gladly use the word union. Later this morning, a fourth democratic candidate will vie for union support. Hillary Clinton takes the stage at 9:00.