Gephardt's afternoon had started with an endorsement by Berk Bedell, an ex-congressman from Spirit Lake and the founder of an international fishing tackle firm. At a fair in Cherokee, he shook hands and chatted with local farmers. Then, he and his two staffers raced to Sioux City for the two-hour flight to Cincinnati.

A tall yet svelte man, Gephardt's blue eyes and blonde hair hid his steely determination to win. Even a summer cold could not dim his drive to win the Democratic presidential nomination.

During the thirty-minute ride from the airport, the candidate asked about IAM jobs lost in airlines and aerospace. Reminded of his efforts to save TWA and win contracts for McDonnell Douglas, Gephardt made a mental note for the next morning. He knew that the IAM's endorsement was his to lose with a lackluster performance.

Howard Dean flew into Cincinnati the next morning. It was his second stop.

Earlier in New York City, Dean appeared on Good Morning America. The intelligence flap behind President Bush's State of the Union Message was just heating up, and Matt Lauer wanted to explore Dean's charge that the Bush Administration had misled the American people. The interview was rebroadcast as Dean's leased jet taxied to a stop.

Clad in a blue business suit and red tie, Howard Dean carried an overnight bag and a laptop case. There was no trace of makeup left from the GMA interview. The candidate was energized by his four minutes on national TV.

As rush hour traffic thinned, Dean was briefed on the IAM's staff conference, the impact of the Meridian Mississippi shootings, and the likelihood of winning the union's endorsement. Told that a straw poll of one territory had produced forty votes for Dennis Kucinich, his response was "no shit!"

Dean entered the Cincinnati convention center under no illusions about how high the bar had been set.

Dean's campaign has fueled excitement among voters who were turned off by the political system.

Are You Ready For This
Seven hundred sign-waving Machinists packed the room. Many wore dark blue t-shirts emblazoned in gold with "JOBS! Worth Fighting For." The hall reverberated with the rap song Are You Ready For This.

After a brief introduction, Dean paused in memory of the IAM brothers and sisters gunned down in Mississippi. He then introduced himself as the only doctor in America with a 100 percent C.O.P.E. rating and the recipient of the AFL-CIO's Paul Wellstone Award.

His first sustained applause came when he said, "This country is in a lot of trouble because this president has no idea what it means to get up and go to work for a living every day."

Dean complained that the "president's trade policies are killing American jobs." He promised to oppose trade agreements that lacked labor and environmental standards. And he claimed he would "undo the ones we have."

"Look at what happened to Maytag," the former Vermont governor urged, "why should we buy an appliance from them if there are no labor standards and no environmental standards where those appliances are made?

"If we want to export more than knickknacks and information technology," Dean went on to say, we have to stop "transferring our industrial capacity to other countries."

After castigating the Bush Administration for "hollowing out our industrial capacity," Dean repeated his trademark phrase: "We can do better."

His forty-minute speech included brief but pointed remarks about health care and gun control. Both drew prolonged applause.

"I want health insurance," he emphasized, "for every single American." And then he reeled off a list of a dozen nations that have national health insurance starting with Canada and ending with Costa Rica. His next question, why must we be second-class citizens in this world, brought the entire conference to their feet.

On gun control, Howard Dean pledged to "get guns off the national agenda." He explained that Vermont does not have gun control and that, if New York and California wanted stricter laws, they could pass them. But he "wanted to get those union votes back in our party."

Governor Dean ended his speech with a call to "stand up for America again." He left the room to a standing ovation.

We Are Family
Fifteen minutes later, Congressman Dick Gephardt entered the hall to the rocking refrains of We Are Family.

Escorted by the entire Missouri contingent, he snaked his way through the crowd, shaking hands and greeting old friends. The escort committee followed him onto the stage and stood behind him throughout his speech. And what a speech he gave.

With a thumbs-up punch to crowd, Gephardt pledged to "always fight for organized labor." His hoarse voice warmed as he launched into an impassioned expose of President George W. Bush's handling of the economy.

"President Bush doesn't understand what is happening to working families in this country," Gephardt argued. "He is attacking working families and attacking organized labor."

A Gephardt presidency would be far different. "I will fight every day on every issue for good jobs for our people. I've been there for twenty-seven years ... I fought at your side against Carl Ichan and the corporate raider ideas that he had at TWA. I fought with you and your members to stop him."

During the McDonnell Douglas strike in 1995, Gephardt explained "people said it was insoluble. I put the parties together and got an agreement worked out."

After ripping off a list of initiatives such as the F-15, F18-A, the tanker leasing contract, and pushing Boeing to take on Airbus, Gephardt reminded the audience that "I have been there time and time again trying to build and save jobs at these great companies. I've been fighting every day on every issue."

"I was the guy who was leading the fight," he reminded the audience, "against my own president on NAFTA and China. I lost by one vote on NAFTA and by a few votes on China."

A Manufacturing Policy
The heart of Gephardt's appeal focused on jobs. His voice settled into a steady cadence and his tightly drawn face relaxed as he laid out his solution to the decline of manufacturing jobs.

"For the first time ever," Congressman Gephardt explained, "this nation will have a trade, jobs and manufacturing policy that will be designed in all its parts to hold on to and, in fact, build new manufacturing jobs in the United States of America."

Gephardt's manufacturing policy started off with "new trade policies that will ask the World Trade Organization to have a minimum wage on a worldwide basis." He then pledged to "amend, change or repeal trade treaties that have put us on an unlevel playing field."

As president, Gephardt said he would devise "tax policies that will encourage companies to come to the United States, to stay in the United States, to make products in the United States, and discourage them from going to other countries."

Finally, a Gephardt presidency would "try to revise trade treaties so that, if unfair trade is taking place, tariff barriers are erected so products that are made under unfair conditions cannot come into the United States."

I Will Not Rest
Health care was the next issue addressed by Congressman Gephardt. He unabashedly claimed to have "the best plan. In my first week, I will ask the Congress to rescind the Bush tax cuts that haven't worked ... and use those monies to require every employer to give [health care] plans to their employees.

"We will see to it that everybody in this country is covered by health insurance. It must happen," pledged the Missouri congressman.

"This issue is in my heart. It is in my head. It is in my soul, and I will not rest as your president until I find the solution to this problem," Gephardt explained.

Nearly seven hundred IAM elected leaders and staffers rose in unison to give Dick Gephardt the loudest and longest ovation of the day. The IAM's endorsement was sealed at that moment.

With the tune We Are Family blaring in the background, Congressman Gephardt shook hands with the IAM's Executive Council and plunged into a sea of JOBS! Worth Fight For shirts.

The Endorsement Vote
The demonstration of support and enthusiasm for Gephardt's presidential bid lasted for fifteen minutes. The sustained applause mixed with popping flashes as photographers sought to capture the moment.

By the time Gephardt exited the room, those who would vote on the endorsement knew the score: 90,000 IAM members had lost their jobs since January 2001.

The men and women at the conference knew that the promised economic recovery was a figment of the White House's imagination. Where they worked, plants and shops were still closing and unemployment lines were growing longer.

And they knew that the choice between Dick Gephardt and Howard Dean boiled down to one word: loyalty. Loyalty meant remembering the battles fought. Loyalty meant sticking with a friend.

When the auditors finished their standing counts, Congressman Dick Gephardt received 72 percent of the votes cast. Doctor Howard Dean received 28 percent.

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