PITTSBURGH — Joe Biden’s decision to kick off his presidential campaign in Western Pennsylvania Monday shows that he is not just in the race for…
PITTSBURGH — Joe Biden’s decision to kick off his presidential campaign in Western Pennsylvania Monday shows that he is not just in the race for the battle for the soul of the country, he is in a battle for the soul of his party.
That battle begins and ends with a long primary contests that many Democratic experts and officials believe will be decided exactly one year from today on Pennsylvania’s April 29 primary voting day.
“This nominating process certainly has all of the ingredients to go long, and the Democratic voters in this state hold the key to help defining our party as being the party of the working class,” said Harold Schaitberger, the general president of the International Association of Fire Fighters in an interview with The Post in Pittsburgh.
The IAFF, which represents more than 316,000 full-time firefighters, announced its endorsement of Biden in Pittsburgh, something Schaitberger said is one of the earliest endorsements it’s ever done, and one it did not give Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump in the 2016 election.
“That marked the first time we’ve ever not endorsed in a presidential election,” he said.
Schaitberger bluntly admits Clinton just did not connect with labor, but Biden does.
“We’re also responsible to make sure that, quite frankly, the nominee is a Democratic Party isn’t a nominee that is gonna take the party off the left cliff,” he said.
