If you are a political candidate in Cincinnati working the grounds of the AFL—CIO Labor Day Picnic at Coney Island, the chances are good that the person whose hand you shake is not a city voter.

        But that union member is more than willing to put down his or her beer and brat for moment to give you an earful.

        “The people who come here definitely have issues they are interested in,” said Dan Radford, executive secretary-treasurer of the Cincinnati AFL-CIO Labor Council, as he roamed the Coney Island picnic grounds Monday afternoon with a walkie-talkie to his ear.

        “And you better believe they vote.”

        That is why the majority of the 26 candidates for Cincinnati City Council and the two major contenders for Cincinnati mayor spent Monday wandering among the nearly 20,000 Tristate union members and their families in what has become the unofficial kick-off of Cincinnati campaign seasons.

        Only about one of every four adults at the AFL—CIO picnic are Cincinnati residents; the rest come from Northern Kentucky, the Hamilton County suburbs and surrounding counties.

        But most of them belong to union locals that routinely endorse Cincinnati council candidates and, increasingly, give large amount of union political action committee (PAC) money to their favorites.

        “We've got 1,600 members and maybe 400 of them actually live in the city,” said Bill Cunningham, business manager of Local 212 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW).

        “But every one of our members has a stake in who gets elected in Cincinnati, because that's where many of them work,” Mr. Cunningham said. “That's why politicians will pay attention to us this time of

        year.”

        It would have been hard for picnickers not to pay attention to the candidates — they were omnipresent.

        City council candidates wandered the grounds, shaking hands and passing out campaign brochures, some of them trailed by phalanxes of youthful volunteers in campaign T-shirts, shilling for them among the crowd.

        The politicking did not stop the barbecuing, the horseshoe pitching or the raffling of door prizes that are the staples of the AFL— CIO picnic.

        The campaigners were a sideshow, except for the two major contenders for mayor, who seemed to attract the biggest crowds eight days before the city's first mayoral primary.

        Democrat Charlie Luken, the incumbent mayor, has been campaigning at the AFL-CIO picnic since he was a child - first for his father, former councilman and congressman Thomas Luken - and then for himself as a councilman and mayor during the 1980s.

        “For most people, Labor Day is a day off work,” said Mr. Luken, greeting voters at the gate to the picnic ground. “But if you are in the Luken family, it really is a day of labor.”

        Courtis Fuller, the Charter Committee's candidate, had been to the AFL—CIO picnic before as a TV news reporter; Monday was his first as a candidate.

        Three teen-agers approached Mr. Fuller in the midway to shake his hand. Two told him they were too young to vote in the Sept. 11 mayoral primary; the third said he is 18 but doesn't plan to vote.

        “You're just the person I need to have go vote,” Mr. Fuller said. “Do you want things in this city run by the same old people all the time? You can vote for change.”

        Mayoral candidates could draw a crowd by simply walking down the midway; others had to be more creative.

        Wes Flinn, the Green Party's candidate for Cincinnati City Council, camped out near the entrance and played his trombone for the picnic-goers.

        “I'm hoping that if I can convince four people here to vote for me, each one of them will convince four more and on and on, like that,” said Mr. Flinn, who is working on a music theory doctorate at the College Conservatory of Music.

        “If the music helps get me some attention, great.”

        But what union rank-and-file will be listening for this year is not the music, but the words.

        “There are a lot of union people out here concerned about everything from civil service reform to health care to prevailing wage,” Mr. Radford said.

        “And, in this city, there is a lot of concern among union workers about social and economic equality in the black community,” Mr. Radford said. “People are going to be listening closely to what these candidates have to say.”

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