Dubya Looks For Union Label
George W. Bush said he asked the Teamsters union to endorse his GOP presidential bid and got the "beginnings of a good sign," but not a pledge yet.
Bush met Wednesday with Teamsters' leader James P. Hoffa, who last year said his union should support Republican candidates as well as Democrats, who have traditionally looked to labor unions for backing.
In North Carolina on Thursday, the Texas governor said he and Hoffa "had a very frank discussion of a variety of issues," including NAFTA and trucking safety.
"I did ask for his union's endorsement, and he said he hadn't made up his mind," said Bush, the presumptive GOP nominee for president.
Last week, Bush's rival, Democrat Al Gore, met with Hoffa, who took over the union last year.
Hoffa has withheld a Teamsters endorsement in the presidential race, because he opposes a Clinton-Gore administration plan to give permanent normal trade status to China. Gore said he and Hoffa disagreed on China's trade status.
The AFL-CIO has endorsed Gore and is committing $40 million to help him win the presidency as well as help mostly Democrats in about 65 close U.S. House races and 14 U.S. Senate contests. The union also expects to support about 25 GOP candidates.
But the Teamsters and the United Auto Workers have opposed Gore's early endorsement by the AFL-CIO October. They represent a combined 2 million of the 13 million members of AFL-CIO's 68 affiliated unions.
On Thursday, Bush promoted bipartisanship in reaching educational excellence and praised improvements in student achievement in both Texas and North Carolina.
Bush said student achievement must be measured to avoid the "soft bigotry" of old education strategies.
"The old way of thinking used to ask the question, `How old are you? If you're 12, your're supposed to be here.' Guess who got left behind? The inner-city kids," Bush said. ""What we ought to ask is `what do you know?"'
Access to education was the battle of past decades, but today access is universal. "Excellence is not," Bush said.