Democrats to Run as Wal-Mart Foes in the Upcoming Midterm Elections

[Frodo]

This just goes to remind me why I am a Democrat:

Eye on Election, Democrats Run as Wal-Mart Foe

By ADAM NAGOURNEY and MICHAEL BARBARO
Published: August 17, 2006

DES MOINES, Aug. 16 — Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, a likely Democratic presidential candidate in 2008, delivered a 15-minute, blistering attack to warm applause from Democrats and union organizers here on Wednesday. But Mr. Biden’s main target was not Republicans in Washington, or even his prospective presidential rivals.

It was Wal-Mart, the nation’s largest private employer.

Among Democrats, Mr. Biden is not alone. Across Iowa this week and across much of the country this month, Democratic leaders have found a new rallying cry that many of them say could prove powerful in the midterm elections and into 2008: denouncing Wal-Mart for what they say are substandard wages and health care benefits.

Six Democratic presidential contenders have appeared at rallies like the one Mr. Biden headlined, along with some Democratic candidates for Congress in some of the toughest-fought races in the country.

“My problem with Wal-Mart is that I don’t see any indication that they care about the fate of middle-class people,” Mr. Biden said, standing on the sweltering rooftop of the State Historical Society building here. “They talk about paying them $10 an hour. That’s true. How can you live a middle-class life on that?”

The focus on Wal-Mart is part of a broader strategy of addressing what Democrats say is general economic anxiety and a growing sense that economic gains of recent years have not benefited the middle class or the working poor.

Their alliance with the anti-Wal-Mart campaign dovetails with their emphasis in Washington on raising the minimum wage and doing more to make health insurance affordable. It also suggests they will go into the midterm Congressional elections this fall and the 2008 presidential race striking a populist tone.

Some Democrats expressed concern about the direction the party was heading, saying it could turn back efforts by such party leaders as former President Bill Clinton to erase the image of the party as anti-business and scare off corporations who might be inclined to make contributions.

[TeePee4Prez]

I think the Democrats should also show this as being pro-small business which creates mostly higher paying jobs. 

[Nym90]

I think the Democrats should also show this as being pro-small business which creates mostly higher paying jobs. 

Exactly, not to mention that the money from small business is much more likely to stay in the local economy.

I think this is an excellent idea. If Democrats keep the focus on bread-and-butter economic issues and don't get sidetracked by wedge issues, they have a clear advantage with the electorate overall.

[Speed of Sound]

I think the Democrats should also show this as being pro-small business which creates mostly higher paying jobs. 

Exactly, not to mention that the money from small business is much more likely to stay in the local economy.

I think this is an excellent idea. If Democrats keep the focus on bread-and-butter economic issues and don't get sidetracked by wedge issues, they have a clear advantage with the electorate overall.

I couldnt agree more. Instead of smearing Walmart and co. (no matter hjow much I want them to), sticking with the pro is always better. This is especially great as an answer to reverse the economy, unless we do it and it gets worse. Then we're screwed.

[Jake]

Nice. We now a major political party targeting the nation's largest employer. That's grand.

[??????????]

I guess the Democrats want to go back to the "mom and pop" rip-off stores.

[nini2287]

Have these Democrats said anything about Wal-Mart's proposoal to sell environmentally-friendly, corn-based ethanol?

[WalterMitty]

another example of how democrats moralize just as much as republicans.

dont like wal mart?  dont shop there.

leave us normals alone.  dont preach to us about fing wal mart every single day.

[MODU]

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Biden has lost it.  Wal-mart's job is not to care about the fate of middle-class people.  Their job is to provide a service (in this case, inexpensive goods to most of the country) and make a profit.  $10/hour is almost twice the minimum wage in some states, and, in those cases, it is a livable income (especially in a joint income family). 

Please, Democrats, take on Wal-mart.  Waste your time and your money attacking the company that serves the very base you claim to champion. 

Bunch of morons.

[MODU]

Here's a more complete article regarding the battle between Wal-mart and the Democrats:

"Wal-Mart takes the fight to its critics"

John Edwards, Democratic vice-presidential candidate in 2004, was in Pittsburgh this month doing his bit for the party ahead of November's midterm elections to the US Congress. His agenda included addressing a rally against the shortcomings not of the Bush administration but of Wal-Mart, the country's biggest retailer and largest private-sector employer.

"Wal-Mart needs to be a more responsible employer, by offering decent wages," Mr Edwards told a crowd who had turned out to support Wake Up Wal-Mart, a campaigning group funded by the UFCW grocery workers' union that, along with others, the company staunchly refuses to recognise. Mr Edwards also attacked the company's record on health benefits, arguing that the dependence of some Wal-Mart employees on state-funded Medicare programmes meant the chain was being unfairly subsidised.

"Every consumer should know when they walk into Wal-Mart their tax dollars are going to provide healthcare for Wal-Mart workers . . . while the people who own Wal-Mart are making billions of dollars," he proclaimed. The retailer struck back immediately. A Wal-Mart official denounced the Pittsburgh event as part of "a union-funded publicity stunt that's more about politics than anything else".

(Cont...)

[Nym90]

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Biden has lost it.  Wal-mart's job is not to care about the fate of middle-class people.  Their job is to provide a service (in this case, inexpensive goods to most of the country) and make a profit.  $10/hour is almost twice the minimum wage in some states, and, in those cases, it is a livable income (especially in a joint income family). 

Please, Democrats, take on Wal-mart.  Waste your time and your money attacking the company that serves the very base you claim to champion. 

Bunch of morons.

It's not serving the base, that's the point. The overall impact on the poor and middle class is more negative than positive in the long run, even though it might have small positive short term effects when a new store is opened. But overall the interests of the poor and middle class are going to be better served by supporting locally owned and operated businesses that keep the money in the local economy, and those that keep the money in the US economy instead of shipping it overseas to a communist country such as China.

Many people have no choice but to shop at Walmart simply because once they've moved into an area the smaller business have died out. It doesn't mean that people necessarily like it, but it (and its direct big box competitors) are the only choices available if you aren't wealthy.

[Nym90]

dont like wal mart?  dont shop there.

And that is the choice many people would make if they could. I have no problem with Walmart existing as an option for people, but I do have a problem with it reducing choice for consumers, which makes the market less free.

[angus]

The focus on Wal-Mart is part of a broader strategy of addressing what Democrats say is general economic anxiety and a growing sense that economic gains of recent years have not benefited the middle class or the working poor.

Probably a reasonable strategy, but the spin this story has given that strategy won't help the Democrats.  Sure, you can find a handful of Pittsburgh steel-mill workers displaced by cheap asian steel, rust-belt manufactures in decline, sun-belt workers cursing Mexicans, and many southern and midwestern towns with Mom'n'pop in early retirement, but this story's spin makes it look like the Democrats are gladly trading millions of votes for thousands.  Not necessarily a winning strategy.  Of course, the "liberal" media may very well be just as put off with the democrats as with the republicans.  (Who could blame them?)   And no, Adam Nagourney isn't the "major league asshole ... big time"  That was Adam Clymer.  Also, bear in mind that when you're Joe Biden (or Kay Bailey Hutchinson or Teddy Kennedy or Trent Lott etc.) you can pretty much run any campaign you want.  Don't take Biden as representative of anything larger than his own agenda.  "Wal-Mart" is an easy scapegoat the way phrases like "big tobacco", "child pornographer", "Osama", or "hurricane katrina" are.  It gets the troops all frenzied up in irrational applause.  And don't take Nagourney's story as anything other than a shallow and poorly represented vignette of a party's agenda.  Whether or not you agree with the Democrats in general is a broader matter.  There's a reason headlines are 72-point font and stories are 12.  The short attention span of the average reader and the need to sell ad space makes for mean slavedriving among newsies.  Get past the front page and the op/ed pages once in a while.

[TheresNoMoney]

Nice. We now a major political party targeting the nation's largest employer. That's grand.

I'm sure that Wal-Mart workers love their $8 an hour jobs and crappy benefits.

It doesn't make sense to try to improve the way they treat their workers, right?

[TheresNoMoney]

...sticking with the pro is always better.

I agree.  It seems like Democrats are becoming more and more "anti". 

And the Republican aren't? Anti-gay, anti-stem cell reserach, anti-worker, etc.

[TheresNoMoney]

Please, Democrats, take on Wal-mart.  Waste your time and your money attacking the company that serves the very base you claim to champion. 

Bunch of morons.

You really, really don't get it.  When the nation's largest employer pays its employees $7-10 an hour and offers crappy benefits, don't you think that may be a problem??? You think we should just continue to exploit their workers??

[MODU]

Please, Democrats, take on Wal-mart.  Waste your time and your money attacking the company that serves the very base you claim to champion. 

Bunch of morons.

You really, really don't get it.  When the nation's largest employer pays its employees $7-10 an hour and offers crappy benefits, don't you think that may be a problem??? You think we should just continue to exploit their workers??

It's RETAIL!  No one is camping out in front of Staples or Best Buy or Michaels complaining that they pay their staff less than $10/hour, is there?  Of course not . . . because it's RETAIL.  And no one is being exploited.  They are free to quit anytime they want.  They aren't chained to cash registers or whipped in the store room or threatened if they want to quit.  "Exploited."  Sheesh, get real.

Edit:  Sorry.  Didn't mean to get snippy.

[angus]

they're not really camping out in front of walmart either modu.  But the trend doesn't go unnoticed.  Just the other day, for example, I saw on CSPAN Book Notes a guy hawking his book (can't remember the author or title) on just this subject.  And the book signing event was held at a Barnes&Noble, of all places!  The irony wasn't lost on the speaker however, who named, by name, a number of mom'n'pop booksellers in that community which had closed since the Big Box Bookretailler moved in.  Admittedly the author did so as diplomatically as possible so as not to offend his Big Retailler hosts.  After all, if you ain't selling your book at Walmart or B&N, then you really ain't selling your book.  (wink)

But the point isn't whether we're venting at Walmart, Target, Barnes and Noble, or (insert your favorite corporate hooligan here).  The point is that the article contains a reasonable statement of strategy.  But of course the writer's job is to sell ad space so the headline contains the phrase "Dems attack walmart" or some such nonsense.  Of the seven gazillion posters here, most will only see the headline, and the same is true for the readers of newspapers who see headlines.  They actually view the world in such terms:  Dems take on Walmart.  Make no mistake, and don't blame this on the "media"  They are doing their jobs.  And they're pretty even handed in terms of trashing the Republicans and Democrats equally.  How often do we get maybe one line of a five hundred word speech by Bush or Rummy repeated over and over in a headline?

Smart Democrats (and yes there are a few) know that they're not "taking on Walmart" and that to do so would be tantamount to asking for a loss.  But even smarter ones, such as those with safe seats in small states like Delaware, know a good catch phrase when they hear one.  Walmart now is not unlike "big tobacco" in the 90s, "Juden" in 30s Germany, or even "Republicans" in the 1880s Deep South.  It's red meat for the faithful.  Don't read too much into this.  But do read the story if you're going to bother reading a headline.

[David S]

Just a few questions:

Does anyone really think the local Mom and Pop stores pay their employees better or give them better benefits than Walmart?

Does anyone think the local Mom and Pop stores sell their wares at prices competitive with Walmart?

Does the local Mom and Pop refuse to sell chinese made goods?

It seems to me that Walmart is better for the employees and the customers.

In our area there is a Walmart, but I rarely go there because I prefer, Meijers, Kmarts, ACO and Home Depot all of which are closer to my house. I think in most well-populated areas there is a wide choice of stores to go to.

[angus]

Just a few questions:

Does anyone really think the local Mom and Pop stores pay their employees better or give them better benefits than Walmart?

...or that walmart "sets foreign policy" to quote PIRG. 

The point here isn't whether anyone really believes that.  Yes, we have a bunch of 15 year old posters who'd believe the moon was was made of bleu fromage, and most do, but they can't vote anyway.  The point is that saying walmart to Deaniacs is like when a class of high school biology students hear the word hard while watching an illegally taped Discovery Channel show so that the teacher can spend the day doing his taxes instead of doing his job.  "Notice how the praying mantis gets hard when approached..."  "Dude, they just said hard!"  "yeah, man, I heard that."  It elicits a certain and predictable response.  Most of those airheads in the audience have shopped at walmart and have appreciated on a sublime level the fact that they can get a quart of oil, a liter of cheap red wine, a head of lettuce, and a bean-bag chair all under the same roof for extremely low prices.  And few (if any!) considered the plight of their fellow blue-collar white trash american workers while they made the purchace which undoubtedly increased our national trade deficit with china.  It'a a catch phrase. 

anyway, I repeat that there is a story under all this, and it isn't best described as "dems run against walmart" but rather ...  well, it doesn't matter, because a more accurate telling of the story wouldn't sell any ad space, and it certainly wouldn't have merited the creation of a thread.  Sadly.

[MODU]

Just a few questions:

Does anyone really think the local Mom and Pop stores pay their employees better or give them better benefits than Walmart?

Does anyone think the local Mom and Pop stores sell their wares at prices competitive with Walmart?

Does the local Mom and Pop refuse to sell chinese made goods?

It seems to me that Walmart is better for the employees and the customers.

In our area there is a Walmart, but I rarely go there because I prefer, Meijers, Kmarts, ACO and Home Depot all of which are closer to my house. I think in most well-populated areas there is a wide choice of stores to go to.

You forgot:  Do mom and pop stores offer competitive health insurance, or any insurance options at all?

[opebo]

...or that walmart "sets foreign policy" to quote PIRG.

Of course it is obviouis that foreign policy is set by the class which owns WalMart and every other corporation, angus, just as they set every other policy implemented by the american State.  This is inevitable, as they have the power. 

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If a worker is expected to do the incredibly arduous job of 'teaching' for $30,000 or $40,000 per annum, one should not be surprised when he attempts to ease the load. 

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'Sublime'?  Your excitement is overplayed, angus.. commodity junk goods have always been fairly cheap.. Walmart is really only incrementally more so.

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Your use of the term 'trash' is offensive, and does little more than reveal your own disadvantaged background.  Of course people are termed trash based upon their position in the social heirarchy, but often those doing the labeling are merely trying to delude themselves that they are made of different stuff.  Believe me, if you have ever shopped at WalMart, you are 'trash' in the sense that you have no political power, and are essentially a serf in the american system.  The people that matter in america do not enter such places.

Keep in mind also, angus, that what you are 'buying' in WalMart is not so much a product but power - that chinese slave you mentioned is 'cheaper' because he is more powerless.  WalMart is essentially a political institution, like all such 'businesses'.

[Rob]

Ah, see those are simply labels you folks like to stick on us to make us look more like you, the whiners.  You actually go and take the "anti" positions.

The GOP isn't anti-abortion, anti-gay marriage, and anti-flag burning?

I guess the White House and the congressional Republicans missed the memo.

[Speed of Sound]

...sticking with the pro is always better.

I agree.  It seems like Democrats are becoming more and more "anti". 

And the Republican aren't? Anti-gay, anti-stem cell reserach, anti-worker, etc.

Ah, see those are simply labels you folks like to stick on us to make us look more like you, the whiners.  You actually go and take the "anti" positions.

We finally found a form of propoganda we're good at!

[angus]

Believe me, if you have ever shopped at WalMart, you are 'trash' in the sense that you have no political power, and are essentially a serf in the american system.

as opposed, perhaps, to "if you have ever stolen from walmart, as I do regularly and brag about, you are a 'leach' in the sense that while you still have no political power, you at least have your parents to pay for the pussy you cannot get by charm or wit, and the means to wile away the hours making yourself feel better by cutting others down."

well, in any case, after I'd gone to Lowe's to buy the c-clamps and chains, I did in fact make a trip to walmart.  In fact, I gave a fellow trash (though in this case he's a citizen of bangladesh and decidely not white, so let's call him "brown trash") a ride to walmart with me.  I think he also shops at walmart regularly.  And apparently bengali slave labor costs the same as yankee slave labor.  At least our salaries are the same. 

Cogs in the machine, we may be, and brown trash and white trash respectively.  Still, we are not cancerous growths on the vine with no marketable skills and completely dependent on the generosity of others.  I'm comfortable with that.