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John Edwards came to Concord to take a victory lap yesterday after winning the endorsement of the 10,000-member State Employees Association. But a celebratory press conference degenerated into an intra-union feud over whether the former North Carolina senator was the board's first choice.

The union's board voted 7-5 on Oct. 23 to endorse Sen. Barack Obama, according to two board members who support the Illinois Democrat. They say the board even authorized SEA president Gary Smith to call Obama and tell him he'd won the union's presidential endorsement. But by the end of last week, they said, Smith had announced the original vote wasn't proper and called for another one, which Edwards won 9-8 Tuesday night.

Repeatedly asked at a press conference whether he had called Obama last week to tell him he'd won the endorsement, Smith declined to answer.

"I've been in contact with several campaigns about where they are relatively in the polls with our members," he said. Asked a fifth time, Smith retorted: "You can stop asking. . . . That is the answer. I'm sorry, it's going to be the consistent answer, no matter how many times you keep asking."

Edwards attempted to cut off reporters asking about the Obama call, saying that Smith had "answered the question." Edwards also brushed off questions about the endorsement's legitimacy.

"You have to ask these guys, I think I'm the only one they've endorsed," Edwards said, laughing. "It's true with a lot of these union endorsements, it's a long and very democratic process, where the leaders also play an important role. And they, at the end of the day, decided they supported me."

The endorsement means an influx of "resources and people" from other branches of the Service Employees International Union across the country, Edwards said. The union's support also underlines his message, he said.

"They represent why I want to be president," Edwards said. "They're out there trying to build a good decent standard of living for their members and have them on a good decent pay, have pension protection, health care coverage - which is at the core of why I'm running for president."

Others questioned the endorsement's value.

Stephen Foster, an Obama supporter who sat on the SEA's board until he was voted out Saturday, said the process had "been hijacked and proffered as legitimate."

"Unfortunately, when you have a 9-8 vote, I don't think you have 10,000 people as supporters. It's an imaginary thing," he said. "The support is not there. It's fiction."

Obama himself said he found the process "interesting."

"We have got some very strong allies in the union and had received word that the board initially had voted to endorse us," Obama told the Associated Press yesterday. "There were some changes to procedure made that we don't entirely understand, and I'll leave it up to you guys to sort it all out."

At the press conference, Edwards billed the Democratic presidential debate Tuesday night as a turning point in the campaign. Edwards has often questioned the sincerity of Sen. Hillary Clinton, who leads most polls by a wide margin. Yesterday, he knocked Clinton's answer to a question about driver's licenses for illegal immigrants.

"In the course of three minutes, I heard Sen. Clinton say two different things," Edwards said. "And when you get a yes-or-no question, you can't answer yes and no."

Although former president Bill Clinton called into an SEA meeting last week to make the case for his wife, Clinton apparently wasn't ever a contender with the union's leaders. To the end, the union's leaders were split between Edwards and Obama. The final board vote Tuesday night was 8-8, with Smith casting the tie-breaking ballot for Edwards. (next page »)