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Jewish World Review April 19, 2005 / 10 Nisan, 5765 Howard Dean should visit a Wal-Mart By Peter A. Brown
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
Declaring war on the nation's largest private employer is a questionable strategy for a party trying to soften its anti-business image.
Yet Democrats, in the midst of deciding who they are and what they stand for, have settled on one thing — Wal-Mart is their Public Enemy No. 1. Their latest attempt at a legal shakedown in Maryland shows just how pathological they have gotten.
While on his tour of red-state America to convince the heathen in the heartland that Democrats don't have horns, party Chairman Howard Dean might want to visit a Wal-Mart.
Talking to its patrons might provide a valuable lesson for Dean, because Wal-Mart shoppers are many of the same folks whose departure made Democrats the minority party.
That's why the effort by Maryland's Democratic Legislature to extort money from Wal-Mart in order for it to do business there showcases the mentality that divides Dean & Co. from most of the nation's voters.
The Maryland fiasco is the latest by the party and its interest groups — unions, feminists, blacks and environmentalists, etc. —to demonize the giant firm.
They think Wal-Mart epitomizes all they disdain about the 21st-century economy, viewing its low prices as bad because they come from non-union wages and foreign imports.
Most Americans see the company as providing the benefits of globalization. They are voting with their wallets for its low prices, and they profit from the dampening effect Wal-Mart has on inflation overall because its size forces suppliers and competitors to keep costs down.
The Maryland incident spotlights the Democratic view that the private sector exists to fund government. Lawmakers want to spend more on health care — a worthwhile goal — but lack the votes, and courage, to raise taxes.
So lawmakers enacted legislation that would affect only Wal-Mart by requiring companies with 10,000 employees or more to spend 8 percent of their payroll on health care for their workers, or to contribute to a state health-care fund for the poor. Republican Gov. Robert Ehrlich has promised to veto the bill.
This view that government can take the money it wants from business for whatever purpose it deems necessary is the mentality in Europe, where double-digit unemployment and anemic growth rates are the product of such voodoo economics. The result is that those countries have much lower living standards than we enjoy here.
Wal-Mart symbolizes the United States' political divide. It is a hit in most of America, but clearly the firm is more popular in states that voted for George W. Bush over John Kerry.
Given the retailer's success in the commercial marketplace, and the Democratic Party's relative failure in the political equivalent, Dean could learn from Wal-Mart shoppers.
Here's a hint, Howard:
They believe that Wal-Mart is good for them. Otherwise, they'd shop elsewhere.
The anti-Wal-Mart coalition has blocked the firm's expansion in some states carried by Kerry — New York, California and Illinois. But the interest groups that helped do so are the same ones whose views and values have caused millions of voters to leave the Democratic Party, especially in red America.
It is no accident most of the tens of millions who patronize the chain are also members of the white-working and middle classes, which have been deserting Dean's party. If these voters see the war on Wal-Mart as an attack on them, their values and their way of life, it will make the Democrats' already challenging task more difficult.
Don't laugh.
Democrats continue to pay a steep price with military families for a similar transgression.
Democratic opposition to the Vietnam War led to decades of party lawmakers and candidates trying to cut the Pentagon and limit its activities overseas. The result has been a strong aversion to Democratic candidates among military families, both active and retired, that has convinced millions of voters the party is anti-military.
After going to Wal-Mart, Dean ought to talk with Bill Clinton's former labor secretary, with whom he often shares common cause. Robert Reich will tell Dean that those who demagogue the giant retailer don't understand Americans.
As Reich noted in a recent New York Times column, Wal-Mart shoppers are following the same instinct as the computer-savvy yuppie who buys airplane tickets online. But the Democrats would never suggest that the technologically savvy were being unfair to travel agents by trying to save a buck online.
Telling Americans they should not patronize Wal-Mart is "paternalistic tripe. No one is a better judge of what people want than themselves," rightly argues Reich.
Yet Democrats who demonize Wal-Mart do exactly that.
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Peter A. Brown is an editorial page columnist for the Orlando Sentinel. Comment by clicking here. © 2005, Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services |
Arnold Ahlert | |||||||||||
