They told us they had seen SEIU members – nurses, nursing home aides, home care workers, janitors, security officers, and public service employees – everywhere they went on the campaign trail. The folks in purple shirts were in thousands of communities, knocking on doors, staffing phone banks, asking questions at candidate forums, getting their families and friends and neighbors involved.

I guess maybe some of them thought the answer would be that they should take Anna and me out to dinner and schmooze, and when we were ready we would pick our favorite and put our union behind that candidate.

So we explained – it doesn’t work that way. At all. What we told them was this. Those same people you see out working for change – those are the ones you have to go talk to. And when you do, don’t talk to them about Democrat or Republican. Talk to them about what you will do about health care. About restoring the freedom to form a union without interference from your boss. About bringing our young people home from Iraq, giving them the services they will need, and putting the money being wasted over there to work in our local communities.

Then, to show our commitment, we sponsored with the Center for American Progress, the first candidate forum of the whole campaign. We invited all candidates, regardless of party, to tell us what they would do to solve the health care crisis in America.

Eight candidates, all Democrats (every Republican was invited), stood in front of SEIU members, many of whom actually work every day providing health care in their communities, and outlined their health care commitments. As the New Yorker magazine reports in its September 17 issue, being held accountable in this way left some of them squirming. But the result was that SEIU “has successfully pushed every Democrat in the race into supporting universal health care.”

We also asked each candidate to spend a day walking in the shoes of one of our members so they could go more in-depth than the usual campaign schedule allows to see what working people are facing these days.

Today, we began another exciting step in this process.  Close to 2,000 working women and men from all across America gathered in Washington for SEIU’s member political action conference. On Monday, candidates Clinton, Dodd, Edwards, Obama, and Richardson will have a chance to speak to and listen to these members – again not just for a drive-by sound bite or two, but for a half hour each, so when the members go back to their workplaces and their communities, they can report on the substance of what they heard and saw.

As I told my union sisters and brothers this afternoon, 2008 is our chance to elect “a president who we don’t have to lobby or beg as if making work pay was some type of  special interest —and who knows in their gut that what’s good for workers and unions is good for America.” I am confident that we are going to do that next year, and in the process restore hope and opportunity for the people who do the work in this country.