Yesterday, Democrat Presidential contenders addressed SEIU officials at a candidates’ forum in Washington,DC. The Presidential wannabes all know the massive financial support that can come from the support of union officials and their forced-dues coffers.

And if past experience is an indicator, an endorsement by SEIU officials is particularly lucrative.

After all it was SEIU officials that in 2004 sent $26 million, much of it seized from employees as a condition of employment, to the 527 group Americans Coming Together (ACT). After a complaint filed by the National Right to Work Foundation, the Federal Election Commission fined ACT for illegally spending the money on partisan electioneering… and that’s just one union’s electioneering efforts with one outside group. (Total estimates for the amount spent by union officials to influence the 2003-04 political cycle are nearly a billion dollars.)

But, as former-New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson showed, kowtowing to union officials can be quite confusing, what with so many union officials and so little time. That’s why Richardson undoubtedly left union operatives scratching their heads when he ended his speech to the SEIU exclaiming “Thank you AFSCME!”