Wal-Mart ignites political passions

A campaign to change Wal-Mart's practices has escalated into a battle involving Republicans, Democrats, organized labor and the store itself.

BY RON FOURNIER

Associated Press

WASHINGTON - There is no candidate. There are no ballots. There won't be an Election Day. And yet it may be the hottest, highest-stakes political contest in America today.

It's the campaign against Wal-Mart.

A year-old effort to force the nation's No. 1 private employer to change its business practices has evolved into a Washington-style brawl: tens of millions of dollars spent by Republican and Democratic political consultants using polling, micro-targeting, ads, e-mails, direct mail, grass-roots organizing and strategic ''war rooms'' to ply their trade in the corporate world.

Their fight involves some of society's most vexing trends, including the rising cost of healthcare, the painful realities of globalization and the waning relevance of organized labor.

''Our opponents have organized the likes of a political campaign against us,'' said Bob McAdam, vice president of corporate affairs at Wal-Mart. ``It would be nonsense for us not to respond in a similar fashion.''

Wal-Mart's main opponents are the Service Employees International Union, which started Wal-Mart Watch, and the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, which funds a separate campaign called WakeUpWalMart.com

After failing to organize employees of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. with traditional tactics, the unions decided to use modern campaign and communications methods to drag the company into the public square and try to shame them into change.

Both groups have hammered the world's largest retailer about its wages, health insurance, treatment of workers and proclivity for buying non-U.S. goods. Wal-Mart has responded with counterattacks and a multimillion-dollar campaign to polish its image.

On both sides are some of the best political strategists money can buy.

WakeUpWalMart.com is run by Paul Blank, political director for Howard Dean's 2004 Democratic presidential campaign, and Chris Kofinis, a former political professor who helped draft retired Army Gen. Wesley Clark into the same race.

Their campaign has all the markings of the Dean and Clark insurgencies -- a snappy website, volunteer action lists and an issues-based grass-roots campaign.

Among those lined up against the company at Wal-Mart Watch are Jim Jordan, campaign manager for 2004 Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry, and Terry Holt, a spokesman for the 2004 Bush-Cheney campaign. Odd bedfellows: A Republican working for unions against Wal-Mart.

''Wal-Mart is giving capitalism a bad name,'' Holt explained. ``It's lost touch with its small-town roots and has become a company that is depending on corporate welfare. . .and an all-too-cozy relationship with China.''

Under fire, Wal-Mart turned to Reagan advisor Michael Deaver, Bush-Cheney political director Terry Nelson and several Democrats, among them civil rights leader Andrew Young and campaign strategist Leslie Dach.

Talk about odd bedfellows: Democrats working for Wal-Mart against organized labor.

WakeUpWalMart.com claims 212,000 supporters who can be mobilized with a computer stroke to recruit members and participate in media events designed to shine a bad light on the Bentonville, Ark., company.

''For years, labor leaders were fighting Wal-Mart the old way, but times have changed,'' Kofinis said. ''Instead of organizing workers, they're trying to organize the nation'' against Wal-Mart.