Love Labor Lost

First Al Gore and now Tom Daschle. The second largest vote getter in the nation's history and the nation's most powerful Democrat (legislatively) have both dropped out of the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination campaign. We will never know all the reasons why they chose not to run. And at some level, decisions like this are based on instinct not on check-lists.

But one thing is clear. Labor is for Gephardt. Labor is totally for Gephardt. Gore made a play for AFSCME with his single-payer health plan and the response from that union was: Gephardt. Daschle and his former Clinton Administration advisors cast about for support from Labor and the response was: Gephardt. The fact is Labor didn't want Daschle to run for president. They wanted him to run for re-election. And that's what he's doing.