Kerry Spot    [ jim geraghty reporting ]
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Kerry boats into Boston, July 28, 2004.

You have to look far and wide for any off-message comments at this convention.

Periodically, a cop will joke with one of the NR crowd about how it feels to be surrounded by Democrats. Teresa's "shove it" comment obviously wasn't part of the plan. Maybe — maybe — Hillary's praise for Kerry as "a serious man for serious times" was a veiled shot (with an eye to 2008) at the current nominee, who enjoys a reputation for being dour and dull. But by and large, everybody from Dennis Kucinich to Bill Clinton to Al Gore to Joe Lieberman to Howard Dean is singing, from the same songbook, that John Kerry is the greatest presidential candidate ever.

The only off-key note that came anywhere near "skunk at the garden party" discordance was the comment by Andrew Stern, as reported by the Washington Post's David Broder:

Breaking sharply with the enforced harmony of the Democratic National Convention, the president of the largest AFL-CIO union said Monday that both organized labor and the Democratic Party might be better off in the long run if Sen. John F. Kerry loses the election. Andrew L. Stern, the head of the 1.6 million-member Service Employees International Union (SEIU), said in an interview with the Washington Post that both the party and its longtime ally, the labor movement, are "in deep crisis," devoid of new ideas and working with archaic structures.

Stern argued that Kerry's election might stifle needed reform within the party and the labor movement. He said he still believes that Kerry overall would make a better president than President Bush, and his union has poured huge resources into that effort. But he contends that Kerry's election would have the effect of slowing the "evolution" of the dialogue within the party.

Asked whether if Kerry became president it would help or hurt those internal party deliberations, Stern said, "I think it hurts."

Stern's dissatisfaction with the AFL-CIO and the Democratic party is not new, but his decision to voice his frustration on the opening day of a carefully scripted convention was an unwelcome surprise to Kerry's convention managers, who had been proclaiming their delight at the absence of any internal conflicts.

A Boston Herald columnist wrote, "You have to figure old Andrew — head of the largest union in America — won't be sleeping in the same bed two nights in a row for the remainder of the Democratic National Convention."

"Ridiculous," said Teamsters president James P. Hoffa, when asked in an AP interview about Stern's comments. "I think it's divisive and I think it hurts our cause, and I think the best thing to do is just disregard his comments."

Reached Wednesday afternoon at the labor-heavy party thrown by the National Democratic Ethnic Leadership Council, Sweeney said it was all water under the bridge.

"By his actions, he's been nothing but supportive of John Kerry," Sweeney said. "I don't know why he said that, or whether they were taken out of context or not."

Andrew Stern appeared at the Ethnic Democrats' party, and when he was asked by organizers to offer a few words, said only, "Drink up and have a good time."

Afterwards, he told NRO that his comments were taken out of context, and that he supports Kerry. He said he hadn't experienced much of a cold shoulder from other union leaders or members for his comments, with almost all of them discussing his remarks privately and avoiding a public spat.

Other union members at the party said they stood by Stern, said they're convinced that he is a Kerry supporter, and that his comments were "taken out of context."

The SEIU, representing health-care and nursing-home workers, state and local employees, and janitors among its 1.6 million members, is part of Americans Coming Together, a coalition of liberal activist groups that has raised more than $85 million for voter turnout this year. Stern said the SEIU has put about $65 million in union resources into efforts to elect Kerry and other worker-friendly Democrats, the bulk of it directly aimed at labor efforts in behalf of the senator from Massachusetts.

It's too bad that Stern withdrew his comments so quickly, because in an interview with BusinessWeek, he revealed that he is a rare voice among Democrats thinking seriously about how labor and the party should adjust to a changing world.

Q: Tell us a little more about your work inside the AFL-CIO. You've been trying to expand and rejuvenate the union, take it in a new direction?

A: If you look at the union movement and you look at the Democratic Party...I think they're both in incredible need of reform. The labor movement is no longer organized in the way that our employers are organized, the way our economy is organized. We are localized, the economy is globalized.

Q: So what are you doing? Expanding into new industries? Solidifying your hold?

A: A majority of our employers, probably by the end of the next decade, will be foreign corporations. Our kids are being driven to school by bus drivers in the private sector that are owned by three multinational companies [Sodhexo, Aramark (RMK), and Compass (CMPGY)], two of them based in the United Kingdom. We've been talking with other unions about creating the fist global union in the country. We also have launched the first open-source virtual union in America, called Purple Ocean.

Q: What's an open-source union?

A: It means anybody can join. You can join, our family members can join. ... We want to make people members of our union and mobilize them into the campaigns that we do everyday.

Q: In the past you've expressed dissatisfaction that the Democratic Party hasn't had a full debate on economic issues?

A: Hopefully, we're going to model the Republican Party, where a large group of ideas exists, and then there's a decision-making process. The Republicans have a much healthier, full-throttled debate about where they stand.

The Democrats run from [an] issue because it's divisive, and I think we're hurt by that. People keep looking for the populist message, or whatever we call it, every year, because people are hungry for elected officials to talk about what might change their lives. In the absence of an economic message, we have had a candidate-driven model of politics.

Interesting food for thought for Democratic delegates. But the message they prefer to hear at this year's convention appears to be, "Drink up and have a good time."