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At its state convention in Norfolk a fortnight ago, the Virginia AFL-CIO very nearly did something unprecedented. The labor organization came close to endorsing a Republican for attorney general.
The convention was attended by delegates from about 400 locals representing 12 labor councils. All told, they represented about 100,000 union members and their families.
The only time organized labor has given its blessing to a GOP statewide nominee was in 1969, when it favored Republican Linwood Holton over his Democratic opponent, William Battle. Always before, at least in modem Virginia history, the Democrats have received labor’s nod when that nod has been bestowed.
In recent years, however, the AFL-CIO endorsement has come to be regarded as very much a mixed benediction. The endorsement carries with it the assurance of poll workers, telephone bank operators and a limited amount of financial help. But it also carries the assurance that, as in the past, the Republicans would use the endorsement as a club with which to batter the Democrats as being the party of big labor. And in Virginia big labor, of course, mean liberalism and all the other code words which the “best people” recognize as not representing the primary interests of the commonw ealth. ' Thus, at the 1985 AFL-CIO convention, Democratic candidate for governor Gerald L. Baliles and attorney general candidate Mary Sue Terry both shied away from the labor endorsement. Both said they wanted, and hoped they would get, the rank-and-file labor support, but neither wanted labor’s formal blessing.
Lieutenant governor candidate
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