ABC News Dean Embed - Dean gets two major union edorsements

Marc Ambinder -- Sean McGarvey, IUPAT's political director, said he was skeptical of Dean at first.

Earlier in the year, campaign manager Joe Trippi had shown IUPAT's leaders the Powerpoint presentation outlining Dean's grassroots goals.

"I thought they were wildly optimistic," McGarvey said.

But then came the $7.6 million second quarter, a rapid rise in the polls, and a surprising show of strength in the union's internal balloting.

"We had assumed," said McGarvey, "that [the union members] would be for their champion, Gephardt."

But Gephardt came in second.

...

Sunday's endorsement by the 335,000-member California Teachers Association (CTA) did not take Governor Dean's campaign by surprise.

The CTA formally interviewed Dean in June, and he won by a large margin a vote of CTA's elected teacher representatives yesterday, according to the union. The union said that Dean's strong criticism of the No Child Left Behind education law, and his desire to fully fund special education programs, resonated with its membership.