Obama Backed by Sierra Club And, in a Shift, AFSCME

ENDORSEMENTS

Obama Backed by Sierra Club And, in a Shift, AFSCME

The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees and the Sierra Club announced separately yesterday that they would endorse Barack Obama for president.

"Barack Obama has mobilized a historic movement to reclaim the greatness of America," said AFSCME President Gerald McEntee. "With his leadership, our nation will rise up to rebuild the middle class at home and restore America's reputation in the world."

Only last month, McEntee was one of organized labor's most outspoken critics of Obama, professing grave doubts about his qualifications as the Democratic presidential nominee. "I think he has a problem with the blue-collar worker and relating to that worker," McEntee said.

Asked about the change in his estimation of Obama from one month ago, McEntee said that he and other AFSCME officials had changed their views of the candidate after extensive meetings with his staff and with Obama himself in Washington in the past two days. "We've had an opportunity . . . to sort out our differences to move ahead," he said. "We have changed positions. He's more sure-footed. We fought like hell for Hillary, no question about that, and at times it was tough on the campaign trail, but now we're prepared and ready," McEntee said, to back Obama.

The Sierra Club announcement was not a surprise: the group's executive director, Carl Pope, had hammered the presumptive GOP nominee, John McCain, for months over his missed votes in the Senate and his support for nuclear power subsidies as a way to address global warming. Pope criticized McCain this week after the senator from Arizona said he now supports lifting the federal moratorium on offshore oil drilling.

"We believe Senator Obama is the change our nation needs -- he is the leader who will put America on the path to a clean energy economy that creates and keeps millions of jobs, spurs innovation and opportunity, and makes us a more secure nation," Pope said in a statement.

While McCain touts his commitment to addressing climate change during every campaign stop, he has angered many environmental activists by voting inconsistently on their key issues and insisting that building dozens of nuclear power plants would be key to reducing the nation's greenhouse gas emissions.

-- Juliet Eilperin and Alec MacGillis

'TERRIBLE GROUP OF PEOPLE'

Cindy McCain Criticizes Burma's Military Government

Cindy McCain sharply criticized the ruling military junta in Burma yesterday while traveling in Vietnam with Operation Smile, a humanitarian group dedicated to the repair of cleft lips and palates.

"It's just a terrible group of people that rule the country, and the frightening part is that their own people are dying of disease and starvation and everything else and it doesn't matter," said the wife of presumptive Republican nominee John McCain, according to an Associated Press report from Nha Trang, Vietnam. "I don't understand how human life doesn't matter to somebody. But, clearly, it doesn't matter to them."

McCain's remarks came as part of a larger discussion of her efforts during this, her third visit to Vietnam with Operation Smile and her fifth overall since joining the group in 2001. She is also a member of its board of directors.

"The whole human rights issue in general comes down to things that move me the most," she said, reflecting on the humanitarian crisis in the wake of Cyclone Nargis, which hit Burma last month. "I'm a mother first, and I cannot imagine what it would be like if number one, I couldn't feed my children, and two, they were sick, and number three, I was raped in the process. This whole issue is something that, yes, I would stay involved in."

-- Garance Franke-Ruta