You pay dues to your local, to your state association and to this IAFF to look out for your economic security, your retirement security and your health benefits.

It’s our responsibility to make sure the benefits are there for your family if, God forbid, one of you falls in the line of duty.

Your union is responsible for lobbying to get you the resources, equipment, training and staffing you need to do your job effectively and return home safely at the end of each shift.

It’s our job to get laws passed that cover you if you suffer a stroke, contract cancer, heart disease or one of the many infectious diseases that plague our members at higher rates than the general population.

Those are the issues that this union is and should be focused on when working to push through legislation on your behalf. Those issues — and only those — are what we focus on when deciding who will win the substantial endorsement of our union.

While we focus on educating you on those issues, we also understand and celebrate that you, our members, have other concerns that weigh heavily in the important decisions you make when considering who you personally will support when you go to the polls. Issues of pro-life/pro-choice. The Second Amendment, the right to own firearms. Cultural and social issues, such as same sex marriage. We accept and support that you may turn to the teachings of your church, or to family, friends and other groups that exist to focus on those personal, critical issues when sorting out how you will cast your vote.

I believe strongly that those are not issues that your union should be mucking with. And as long as I’m president, we will leave those issues where they belong — to your personal judgment.

Our responsibility — what you pay dues to this union for — is the basket of issues that affect your job, your quality of life, your safety on the job and the security and health of you and your family.

For each candidate in each election, we do our homework to determine not just what they say they are for, but where they’ve been on those issues for which this union is responsible.

It’s our job to then educate you on those issues and how those candidates have had an impact on the work you do every day. Then it’s up to you to marry those with your own personal judgments and make your decision.

We don’t look at the polls. We don’t look to the media to tell us who they think is winning. We don’t consider the opinions of political prognosticators or look to see who has the largest campaign war chest. And we definitely don’t look at party labels.

Of course, our hope is that you will choose to support, campaign for and vote for the IAFF-endorsed candidate in each and every election. We know that when we stand together — regardless of political party — and focus on those issues, we get our endorsed candidates elected.

And when we have friends making the laws, we are able to improve the lives of our members, because we have politicians in Congress, the state and provincial houses and the city and county councils who are willing to work with us to improve the lives of fire fighters and EMS workers.

So, when you see the name of a candidate on our trademark gold-and-black political brand, we’re not telling you how to vote. We’re simply saying that candidate is the one who has the best record, the strongest history of support for fire fighters and your local, your state and this IAFF’s legislative priorities.

The process I am describing is how Premier Dalton McGuinty’s name came to be on the gold-and-black shirts of our brothers and sisters in Ontario, Canada. It’s how Charlie Christ in Florida, Jim Douglas in Vermont, Brian Sweitzer in Montana and Chet Culver in Iowa won our endorsement. And it’s on that basis that U.S. Senator Chris Dodd won our considerable support in his campaign for president of the United States.

In part due to that principled process we use for endorsement, our union is one of the most politically active and politically powerful players on the entire North American continent. If that sounds like I’m bragging, I am. Because I’m proud of what we’ve built together.

The other, undeniable strength of our endorsement is you — your reputation and the admiration the public has for you and what you stand for.

We gained our status because of your willingness — our members — to get involved and play the game at all levels of politics as hard, tough and smart as you go about doing your jobs protecting your communities every day.

That reputation has enabled us to create a political brand that is sought out by every candidate, at every level. I liken what we’ve built together to Wheaties. It’s known by generations as “the breakfast of champions.” Top athletes all want their picture on that box. Why? Because they like that little cereal flake? No.

The most elite athletes in the world want to be on that Wheaties box because of the brand it represents. Because of who you are and how hard you work, we have built a political brand, the gold-and-black “Fire Fighters For,” that every candidate seeks to get their name on. We have truly created our own Wheaties.

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