The union leadership is clearly manifesting one of the towering problems with the political thinking of Americans today.

They (we) evaluate a perceived "ability to win" over and above what we consider to be the atributes of "the best candidate for the job".
Consequently, both big parties and their loyal members are looking for a loser "who can win", and we all keep paying the cost. We keep electing and re-electing losers, so we can say we "backed a winner". Things get worse, because we don't have the insight, foresight or the cojones to take the risk of backing "the best", Whoever we think it is.
(Our founders would hang their heads in shame.)

One day soon, I hope we will see what we've been doing to ourselves, that we'll move out of "Party Lock-Step" and start backing the wildcats, the unconventional; what "The Party" & the MSM wants us to think of as "fringe" candidates.
Only then will things actually change in American governance.

Let's hear it for "best candidate" rather than "most likely to win." In the general election, I'll vote for whatever democrat gets the nomination. But in the primary, I'm going for Edwards. He at least has a domestic agenda, and it's one that would affect me favorably. Maybe other working people feel the same way.

When will Congress take the initiative and pass a Constitutional Amendment to abolish the Electoral College, and elect the President by the popular vote? It's not right that a candidate who steals Florida or buys Ohio should be able to thwart the will of the majority of the voters. Maybe the "best" candidate could begin to have a chance to run an effective campaign if people could believe that an individual vote would really matter.