NEA Early Endorsement: No
For reasons that are not making sense to me, and a lot of other union members, NEA President Lilly Ekelsen Garcia has decided that NOW is the time and we must endorse Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Democratic presidential primary. This has led to a lot of head scratching, and “what the hecks?” from members who are up on the doings at NEA because at the last Representative Assembly (NEA RA) a measure was passed saying that there would be no early endorsement from the RA. I won’t go into the justification that NEA leadership is offering to defend this move. It does not matter if they can do it under the by-laws. This is a member organization, they need to have the members along with this. Here (hopefully briefly) is why I think this is a bad idea:
- It’s too soon. This is over one year out from the presidential vote. If Hillary’s campaign is about to implode from lack of funding, she needs to learn how to run a campaign more frugally, since she got herself in the pickle last time too. She’s got the money, she’s got name recognition and standing, and primary season, although getting pushed back, isn’t until next year.
- In addition, there may be another viable candidate entering the race, Vice President Joe Biden. SEIU is holding off endorsements for just this reason. We should too.
- Speaking of viable, given the rapidly changing dynamics of national presidential races, and this one in particular, it’s too soon to call Reflections on Teaching » Blog Archive » NEA Early Endorsement: No:
