Leave Wal Mart Alone Says Poll - Road to the Middle Class

By a 3-to-1 margin, 62% disapprove and only 21% approve of "Democratic candidates making Wal-Mart an issue in November's elections," in the RT Strategies poll conducted June 1-5 with a representative sample of 1,209 adults nationwide. The margin of error is + 2.7.

Here at Road to the Middle Class we have been fearless in speaking truth to the powerful over Wal-Mart. We utterly deplore the disdain and the power plays that rich, well-connected liberal and union activists have deployed against Wal-Mart. What do they know? They don’t even shop there.

The temptation to "stand up to Wal-Mart" as a campaign ploy reflects the sometimes cocooning and self-deceptive nature of Democratic Party activists. Indeed, in RT Strategies polls we consistently find that the most vociferously anti- Wal-Mart groups are Northeast and West Coast liberals who themselves rarely or never shop at Wal-Mart, shunning the retailer as not worthy of their patronage. They cannot understand how others fail to reach the same conclusion.

And now that Wal-Mart is starting to sell organic products on the cheap, the liberal rage at Wal-Mart is likely to know no bounds.

After all, the whole point of consuming organic products is the same as the point of consuming Lexuses and BMWs. It is Veblenian conspicuous consumption: You can’t afford it. In the case of organic products the line is: We pay more because it is “responsible.” It sounds very high-minded. But then high-status people always have high-minded reasons for their high-handedness. They can afford it.

By staying out of the stores themselves, anti- Wal-Mart Democrats might have missed the fact that:

· 84% of Americans shopped at Wal-Mart in the past year...

· It is not uncommon for thousands to apply when a few hundred new jobs open up at a Wal-Mart...

· The vast majority of Wal-Mart store managers rose to that post from hourly jobs on the floor.

· For the average family of shoppers, the savings at Wal-Mart are over $2,000 per year.

But who cares about all that when Wal-Mart is failing to provide first dollar health insurance coverage to its non-union employees.

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Christopher Chantrill blogs at www.roadtothemiddleclass.com. His Road to the Middle Class is forthcoming.