by Christi Parsons

Barack Obama’s union friends in Illinois are steamed about some anti-Obama mail headed for voters' mailboxes in the next few days.

They’re especially mad that the mail is coming from the political action arm of their own national organization, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.

True, the national AFSCME organization endorsed Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) over Sen. Obama (D-Ill.) in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination. And they’re doing their best to promote their candidate.

But the Chicago-based Council 31 of AFSCME doesn’t support that endorsement – they back Obama instead -- and they think the union ought to stay out of the business of criticizing their Illinois guy.

“I had a discussion with the president, because we weren’t happy about the Clinton endorsement,” said Henry Bayer, executive director of Illinois Council 31.

“We said, ‘If that’s done, just be for Clinton, don’t be against anybody else,’” Bayer said. “Our members here have a great fondness for Barack Obama, and our members are going to be upset if you do anything negative.’ I had hoped there wouldn’t be anything negative.”

But now it looks like there might be. The union's political arm reports a $34,000 independent expenditure on a mailing opposing Obama.

Council 31 folks don't know what the mailing says yet, but that hasn’t stopped the Illinois union from complaining. And the more negative the mailing is, the more negative their response is likely to be.

Efforts to reach officials of the national AFSCME on Tuesday were not successful.