ALWAYS LOOK FOR THE UNION FORM IN TRIPLICATE:

Union vs. Union on Iowa Campaign Battleground: Iowa has become the epicenter of a fierce labor battle between supporters of Richard A. Gephardt and Howard Dean. (RACHEL L. SWARNS, 12/14/03, NY Times)

A coalition of unions, including steelworkers, machinists and others, has already broadcast two television advertisements and started mobilizing its 95,000 members to try to slow Dr. Dean's momentum. And with unions vowing to flood the state with volunteers, Iowa has become the epicenter of one of the fiercest labor battles in more than a decade.

Twenty-one unions are backing Representative Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri while three others — including two of the nation's largest unions — are supporting Dr. Dean, the former governor of Vermont. The two men are locked in a struggle for primacy in next month's Iowa caucus, and the stakes are high because many labor officials believe that the caucus, the first of the Democratic nominating contests, may determine who will ultimately face President Bush in next year's general election.

The decision by Al Gore, the 2000 Democratic presidential candidate, to endorse Dr. Dean this week has only lent a sense of urgency to the struggle, leaving Mr. Gephardt's backers increasingly convinced that it will be nearly impossible to slow Dr. Dean's momentum unless Mr. Gephardt can stop him here.

"It's trench warfare now," said Larry Scanlon, political director of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, who moved here last week from Washington to help coordinate his union's efforts on behalf of Dr. Dean. "It's hand-to-hand combat."

It seems hardly a coincidence that the decline of the Democratic Party tracks so closely with the decline of industrial unions and the rise of civil service unions. There's something appealing about a party that fights for factory workers--something repulsive about the party of bureaucrats.

Posted by Orrin Judd at December 14, 2003 9:13 AM