Hillary Clinton Works For The Support Of An Old Ally: The Teachers Union
The endorsement process begins in the Democratic primary. O’Malley and Sanders try to win over the AFT, led by longtime Clinton supporter Randi Weingarten.
Three Democratic candidates each traveled to Washington this week to court the endorsement of the American Federation of Teachers — and after taking part in the hour-long meetings, the thing that stood out most to Randi Weingarten, the union, president, was this: Hillary Clinton knew what she was doing.
The other two, Martin O’Malley and Bernie Sanders, maybe less so.
The AFT meetings, which took place over the course of Tuesday and Wednesday, may offer Clinton the possibility of an early, influential endorsement from the major teachers union that endorsed her in the 2008 presidential race. Weingarten herself is close to and has supported Clinton for years. She sits on the board of Priorities USA Action, the super PAC raising millions to support her candidacy.
On matters of education policy, according to Weingarten, Clinton engaged the group with noticeably more depth and granular detail than her competitors. It was, she said, the most striking difference between the three candidates, particularly on the set of issues that have created fissures inside the Democratic Party, including testing, teacher evaluations in tenure decisions, and Common Core.
“Both in terms of the presentation as well as the questions, Secretary Clinton was clearly understood and spoke in great depth,” said Weingarten. “The members of the board did not ask Sen. Sanders or Gov. O’Malley as many questions about public education. I don’t frankly…” Weingarten paused. “I really don’t… Let me just observe that it was interesting. I don’t really want to draw a conclusion about it.”
Weingarten said that all three candidates — Clinton; Sanders, the U.S. senator from Vermont; and O’Malley, the former Maryland governor of Maryland — voiced strong support for public school teachers. But Clinton “talked so granularly about the issues that people felt a freedom to ask follow-up questions,” she said.
The three meetings, hosted at AFT’s headquarters, were each attended by about 150 union members, around one third of whom are on the group’s executive council. Each of the candidates gave brief introductory remarks before answering questions from the audience. The conversation with Clinton, O’Malley, and Sanders touched on five key areas, said Weingarten: the “imbalance in the economy,” public education, health care, retirement security, and the democracy.
The AFT effort to engage the candidates marked the first formal endorsement meeting of its kind by a union or interest group in the 2016 Democratic primary.
The meetings were not open to the media. But in an interview on Wednesday evening, Weingarten described AFT’s endorsement process and outlined in broad strokes each candidate’s message. She declined to elaborate on any shades of difference in policy or position between Clinton, O’Malley, and Sanders.
Prior to the meetings, the candidates each completed a policy-focused questionnaire, which AFT leadership began preparing in collaboration with its members in February. The attendees on Tuesday and Wednesday formulated their questions for the three Democrats — which were not prescreened — having Hillary Clinton Works For The Support Of An Old Ally: The Teachers Union - BuzzFeed News:
