July 07, 2005

Campaign Tested Tactics?

Raging Pundits refutes some grievances against Wal-Mart in this Tom Curry piece.

I'll leave that reading for you, but I'd like to point out a different angle:

Now the union has recruited strategists from the 2004 Howard Dean and Wesley Clark campaigns, and they are mounting a crusade that goes beyond the usual union tactics, such as the boycott or shareholder resolution expressing disapproval of a company’s policies.
Should Wal-Mart be scared or overjoyed about the direction taken by Wake-Up Wal-Mart? The please-the-extreme activism of the Dean and Clark strategists didn't work out well in the 2004 election, and I'd argue will not work in swaying public opinion against WM. What precisely are their new methods?
Blank and Kofinis are deploying election campaign-tested tactics to assail Wal-Mart: running petition drives and holding house parties, canvassing at farmers’ markets, stockpiling an e-mail list and conducting conference calls to marshal the efforts of local anti-Wal-Mart activists.
These might be campaign-tested, but what did the campaign-tests reveal? Note that I'm on the WUWM email list, and can listen in to the conference calls if I so desired, so you'd better believe Wal-Mart has people doing the same.

Posted by Kevin on July, 7 2005 at 03:41 PM

Comments & Trackbacks
Joe Average wrote:

The unions showed up at our neighborhood meetings AFTER we organized. Sure they have an agenda, and so do we.

We are entitled to have an agenda, money, and technological tools... you can't take on the largest company on earth if you are not organized. It's simply not a fair fight.

This stuff happens regardless people. Everyone acts like Dean was the first guy to use a damn email list. Hell ChoicePoint owns a lot more than your email address, they datamine it and sell it to whomever without consulting you. A targeted database used for any purpose is no different. House parties, petitions, and more have been occurring since long before the internet, it's just that we finally have the power to unite in opposition to things we don't like... we don't have to work as isolated units anymore.

The simple fact is that the overwhelming majority of folks do not want a 20 acre walmart in their neighborhood. It's plainly evident here in Portland, but as is the case with everything else these days, government and big business are completely out of touch with the average Joe, and unfortunately the average Joe feels powerless to change it.

We finally have tools to bring parity between large corporations and the widespread and diverse populations they traditionally profit from. The sound you hear is not the earth shattering, it's the thud of a thousand outdated behemoths falling in the wake of a new world order.

How's that for rhetoric ;)

-- July 8, 2005 01:22 PM ∞

Steve Lee wrote:

In Canton Michigan an IKEA is being built that is twice the size of a Supercenter, has a parking lot for 1400 cars and expects 10,000 customers a day (with traffic to match) selling 99% imported goods (except for the Swedish meatballs in the resturant).
It is being WELCOMED by residents and local small businesses, they are eagerly looking foward to the IKEA opening! IKEA good, WAL-MART bad?
Do boycotts and allpoliticsislocal actions really accomplish anything? Bad press maybe, free advertising for sure.

-- July 8, 2005 02:24 PM ∞

Kevin Brancato wrote:

It's perfectly fine for you to oppose Wal-Mart, but don't pretend to be peddling a community consensus, and don't pretend to be interested in applying lessons learned from the opening of other Wal-Mart stores to your location.

-----

Your rhetoric falls flat because you don't -- indeed, cannot -- speak for the "overwhelming majority" of people in your area; such talk is what gives rhetoric a bad name. You speak for yourself, and members of your organization -- nobody else.

What is "plainly evident" to you might be based on improper data collection and understandably biased evaluation. You are grouping together those who oppose Wal-Mart, but take little interest in and do not count those who support it; hence, I think that you are likely to overestimate the relative size of the opposition.

Nobody can tell what the "overwhelming majority" wants without taking a representative sample survey. Have you taken a representative sample of the people in your neighborhood, or are you gauging broad sentiment solely by the intensity of the people you know oppose Wal-Mart? That could be a mistake.

I'd love to have a Wal-Mart Supercenter in my neighborhood, and I think many of my neighbors (in a ~300 unit condo building) would appreciate it as well. Personally, if possible, I'd like a Neighborhood Market right across the street from my building, instead of the new Harris Teeter they will be putting in.

-----

Also, your "Reports and Fact Sheets" section is hilariously one-sided. You give me no good reason to believe that you have a process of evaluating evidence about Wal-Mart's actual impact on communities.

-- July 8, 2005 02:32 PM ∞

Roy W. Wright wrote:

The simple fact is that the overwhelming majority of folks do not want a 20 acre walmart in their neighborhood.

Then maybe they shouldn't shop there when it arrives. Either you're dead wrong, or a huge number of people are shameless hypocrites.

Besides all that, ideally America isn't run by majority tyrrany.

-- July 10, 2005 10:17 AM ∞

brandon weber wrote:

"Besides all that, ideally America isn't run by majority tyrrany."

Then what have the last 7 months proven, if not that we in fact are ruled by majority tyranny?

Bush has claimed a mandate since that disturbing "election," and has proceeded as if the other 49% don't meant squat.

-- July 10, 2005 10:50 PM ∞

Steve Lee wrote:

Brandon: I don't think wethevoters are buying in to the President's "mandate". His Reforming Social Security political capital appears to be spent with the result that "private accounts" are not being accepted as the cure for the "crisis".
I was hoping that investments in US companies would expand the innerAmerican Economy, providing more employment for workers over40 who are likely to be unemployed due to overall economic conditions.
More people working longer careers = more money flowing into Social Security.

-- July 11, 2005 02:32 PM ∞

Roy W. Wright wrote:

Er... I'm sorry, did I unknowingly say something for or against President Bush? Your logic is as hard to follow as always.

-- July 12, 2005 08:32 PM ∞

wrote:

>Besides all that, ideally America isn't run by majority tyrrany.

Followed by

>Er... I'm sorry, did I unknowingly say something for or against President Bush?

Duh, I don't know, Roy, did you?

-- July 12, 2005 11:02 PM ∞

Roy W. Wright wrote:

No.

The Internet should really have an age limit. :)

-- July 13, 2005 12:45 AM ∞

Roy W. Wright wrote:

To elaborate, the key word here is "ideally." If I had said "Besides all that, America isn't run by majority tyrrany," you'd have a point, since in many respects it is -- at the local level by anti-WM thugs and the like, and at the national level by the Bush Administration. Actually, though, I'm not sure either constitutes a majority...

-- July 13, 2005 12:51 AM ∞

Brandon Weber wrote:

> The Internet should really have an age limit. :)

Indeed, Roy. And an IQ threshhold.

-- July 13, 2005 10:03 PM ∞