Missing Men: The Democrats Gore's not getting.

Al Gore may not be the first landlord to face labor problems, but his are more serious than most: The disaffection of two powerful union bosses, and the defection of their rank and file to George W. Bush, could cost him the White House. The United Auto Work ers and the Teamsters refused to join the John Sweeney-engineered early AFL-CIO endorsement of Gore last year, and it now appears there will be no late endorsement either.

In response to Gore's "holding hands with the profiteers of the world," by supporting normal trade relations for China, UAW president Stephen P. Yokich has threatened to back Ralph Nader. Teamsters president James P. Hoffa will poll his members on their presidential preference later this month, when he will also be meeting with Yokich to discuss a "united front" on declining to endorse Gore. This campaign season, the fratricide follies are taking place smack in the middle of the Democratic base.

While Yokich and Hoffa threaten to sit on their hands-and thus to imperil Gore's chances of winning crucial states such as Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Illinois-many of their 2.2 million members will be more proactive. A Teamster official readily admits that a failure to endorse Gore would be "a major plus for Bush"-and would be just fine with many of the union's members. The Teamsters' rank and file favored Bush in a poll of members last fall. The Teamster official assumes that-in spite of Bush's support for free trade-the staunchly protectionist UAW's internal polls indicate similar support for the Texas governor. Union leaders dare not get too far out of step with their members.

The Teamster official attributes the AFL-CIO's endorsement of Gore to the fact that American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees president Gerald McEntee "drives that side of the equation," and public-sector union members have a greater affinity with the Democratic party than blue-collar workers do.

Gore's liberal orthodoxy on gun control and abortion exacerbates the longstanding problem of trying to keep working-class voters inside the Demo cratic coalition. The Teamster staffer says that Bush, meanwhile, "has moved into areas that have broad appeal to our members." Recent polls bear this out: Last month's bipartisan Battleground 2000 poll showed union voters split, with 47 percent supporting Bush, and 46 percent backing Gore. The support of private-sector union workers contributed to Bush's crushing 23-point lead among men (he and Gore are tied among women).

Polls also consistently show Bush with 90 percent support from Republicans, while fewer than 80 percent of Democrats support Gore. This shortfall cannot be attributed to liberals, as the conventional wisdom maintains. Instead, the AWOL Gore voters are primarily blue- collar males between the ages of 18 and 35. Gore has largely solidified his liberal base, so he currently has the Dukakis vote-which is short on more conservative Democrats and independents. Gore's populist attacks on drug companies, gun manufacturers, and big oil will enthuse his antibusiness base, but will probably be little help in appealing to younger males, who are too busy hunting and driving the kind of cars Al Gore would outlaw to worry about their grandparents' prescription-drug costs.

Ed Goeas, the Republican half of the team that does the Battleground poll, explains that his survey found 28 percent of conservative Democrats supporting Bush, but only 9 percent of more liberal Democrats. "Bush is back-dooring the union vote, much as Reagan did in 1980," according to Goeas.

"Younger, blue-collar males are the soccer moms of this election," declares Bush strategist Karl Rove. He welcomes the clout of these new swing voters, because he knows that these guys like his candidate. According to Rove, the governor's appeal to this group is not fatally handicapped by his support for free trade, because that issue is of concern to them only indirectly, as something that affects their unions. Rove argues that these voters take a far more personal view of issues like taxes, education, gun rights, and the moral climate, where Bush is in step with the rank and file.

Bush has also been courting friendly union leaders. He recently talked by phone with the Teamsters' executive board, and routinely meets with local union officials during campaign trips. Bush had a private meeting with Hoffa several weeks ago, and the Teamsters' boss tells associates that he thinks the governor is "a guy's guy." Hoffa also reports that the claim that Gore is more winning in private than in public is "not true." Hoffa's members, without the benefit of personal meetings, apparently agree with their president's assessment: Bush is a nondrinker you'd want to have a beer with.

Union leaders have now begun feuding over the dissension in their ranks, with the teachers' unions urging their labor comrades to abandon trade as a single issue. The Teamsters retort that the teachers have a single issue of their own in their hysterical opposition to vouchers. Hoffa's team takes some pleasure in how the Teamsters' and the UAW's estrangement from Gore undermines John Sweeney; they chortle about the Gore campaign's "faux pas" in not giving the AFL-CIO chief advance warning that Bill Daley, his nemesis on trade, was taking over from Tony Coelho.

Meanwhile, Ralph Nader's campaign confronts the Democrats with their first serious challenge from a left-wing third party since Henry Wallace ran in 1948. Some of Nader's supporters are pledging that he won't play a spoiler role. According to one Democratic operative, they are reassuring the party that Nader will only mount a serious challenge in states where Gore is either so far ahead, or behind, that a third- party bid won't affect him.

There is no evidence, however, that Nader himself has made any such commitment, and a recent Michigan poll provided the latest evidence of the trouble he could cause Gore. Six weeks ago, Bush was down by one point in Michigan. Since then, the DNC has spent $1.2 million on issue ads in the state to boost Gore's message, and Bush now leads Gore by five points. When a recent poll of likely voters factored in Nader, he got eight points, leaving Bush with a twelve-point lead. If the UAW and the Teamsters sit on the sidelines in this year's presidential race-and Gore loses-it might be time to stop talking about a "conservative crack-up," and start watching the Democratic one.