Labor Supporter: Dean ignored pleas to quit [View All]

[kskiska]

WASHINGTON -- One of Howard Dean's most powerful labor supporters, Gerald W. McEntee, said on Thursday that he had decided that Dean was "nuts" shortly before he withdrew his support for Dean's candidacy and begged him to quit the race to avoid a humiliating defeat.

McEntee, the president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, defended his decision to abandon Dean's campaign, saying he told Dean that he did not want to spend another $1 million of his union's money "in order to get him a couple of extra points in Wisconsin."

"I have to vent," McEntee, the often blunt leader of the nation's largest public service union, said in a leisurely interview in his office here. "I think he's nuts."

McEntee said he reached his assessment of Dean after watching him in what he described as a series of halting campaign appearances in Iowa, leading up to his shouted concession speech. He said he did not believe Dean understood how substantial his decline was after that and that he was stunned when Dean did not bow to pressure from labor unions to pull out earlier this month.

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http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/politics/2411882