Tax pledges with your groceries?
Updated on 21 October 2008
Felicity Spector notes that giant supermarket Wal-Mart has posted videos on its website from Obama and McCain, but is it all in the interests of democracy?
Some tax pledges with your groceries? Faster than it takes to punch out a butterfly ballot, the giant supermarket chain Wal-Mart has joined in the Presidential elections posting campaign videos by Barack Obama and John McCain onto its public and employee websites.
Naturally both the candidates were keen as mustard to take part: after all, 136 million people shop at the store every week including that key demographic, the Wal-Mart Mom.
It's websites are among the most visited in the country and, says company spokesman Greg Rossiter: "we'd like to be able to contribute to our customers' understanding of the candidates' views on the important issues we're all faced with."
And those customers are the very target audience the candidates are desperate to reach. According to a survey by Voter/Consumer Research almost half of undecided registered voters said they were now more likely to shop at Wal-Mart than they were six months ago.
So what about those videos? Barack Obama's is a fairly sober affair.
Here's some measured talk about the American dream slipping away, the need for a thousand dollar tax break for the middle classes, affordable health care for all and bringing the Iraq war to an end.
From John McCain, a rather more slick production, complete with black and white footage of his PoW days: images of McCain with troops, meeting Moms, in front of the American flag.
"Outspoken, brash and honest" it proclaims. "John McCain has seen too much to think petty."
So far, so informative. And Wal-Mart insists it's not trying to promote any candidate in particular, as CEO and President Lee Scott declares: "Regardless of who wins the election in November - and what party they are from - we stand ready to work with the new president".
Indeed, just to show its commitment to the whole democratic process, earlier this year it launched a voter registration drive and public announcements in its stores.
But hang on just one minute. Wasn't Wal-Mart accused of putting pressure on its employees to vote Republican, just three months ago?
Back in August, the Wall Street Journal reported how the chain was especially worried about a bill called the Employee Free Choice Act, supported by Obama and opposed by McCain.
If passed, it would make it much easier for workers to join unions: a sentiment echoed by Barack Obama on his campaign video you can see right on the Wal-Mart site.
But hang on just one minute. Wasn't Wal-Mart accused of putting pressure on its employees to vote Republican, just three months ago?
According to the Journal's report the firm made managers and supervisors attend mandatory meetings where they were warned of the disadvantages to workers if stores were unionised, from paying union dues to potential job losses if labour costs were to rise.
The company strongly denied telling employees who to support, but one customer services supervisor told the paper: "The meeting leader said, 'I am not telling you how to vote, but if the Democrats win, this bill will pass and you won't have a vote on whether you want a union.' I am not a stupid person. They were telling me how to vote."
Wal-Mart has changed in one respect, however: this is the first election year when it's donated almost as much to the Democrats as the Republicans - twelve years ago 98 per cent of its political funding went to the GOP.
But it's a long time opponent of the unions, fighting to keep any activity out of its stores.
Letting your customers hear the issues and decide for themselves? Great idea. Letting your employees do the same? That really would be two for the price of one.
