Union pledges to support Illinois senator

Senator Hillary Clinton's biggest organised labour supporter, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, announced on Thursday that its executive board had unanimously voted to endorse Senator Barack Obama for president.

The announcement was not unexpected. It means that the union's 1.4 million members and vast political resources will be at Obama's disposal, Gerald McEntee, the union's president, said in a telephone news conference.

McEntee said that his union would campaign as energetically for Obama as it had done for Clinton, and that it was ready to mobilise 40,000 volunteers and spend $50 million (Dh184 million) for voter education and getting out the vote on Obama's behalf in the autumn. The union has already teamed up with MoveOn for an anti-McCain advertisement, and McEntee said more broadcast spots would be on the way.

McEntee, who is also chairman of the AFL-CIO's political committee, said the labour federation, representing 56 unions and 10 million workers, would endorse Obama within two weeks. It had been too divided over Clinton and Obama to endorse during the primary season. When the Obama-Clinton contest was at its hottest, McEntee criticised Obama's failure to connect with working-class voters and said Clinton would be the stronger candidate in Nov-ember. On Thursday, he steered clear of such statements. But he did have some advice on how Obama should woo the working class.

"I would say that he should have an Appalachia strategy," McEntee said. "We've lost West Virginia any number of times. That's important."

The Canadian connection

Like many people outside the United States, Canadians have taken an unusually keen interest in this year's presidential election. The leak of a memorandum suggesting that Obama's campaign had privately assured Canadian diplomats not to regard his tough talk about the North American Free Trade Agreement too seriously, for example, became the subject of intense political debate in Parliament in March.

So there is considerable anticipation in Canada's capital as the presidential campaign prepares to move briefly onto foreign soil. A speech by Sen John McCain at a faux-chateau-style hotel that is an Ottawa landmark is believed to be the first appearance of an American presidential candidate in Canada in an election year. Nicolee Tattersall, a spokeswoman for the Economic Club of Canada, said her group was approached by the McCain campaign to be the host for the event. While Obama is the first choice of Canadians in polls, that has done little to diminish interest in McCain's speech.