Wal-Mart Moms

The finely demarcated world of political demographics first gave us Soccer Moms.  Then Sarah Palin, the Alaskan 'pit bull', introduced us to Hockey Moms. 

But hovering in the background is the plum working class target of both political parties, the so-called Wal-Mart Moms. Or, as the Republicans would have it, Wal-Mart Women: 

"The fact is, women hauling smiley-face Wal-Mart bags make up a big chunk of the country: Nearly 20% of American women shop at Wal-Mart once a week or more. And the white women who constitute the majority of that group are classic swing voters, unlike their husbands, who ... are more reliably Republican."

Here's the irony.  Just as the campaign for the presidency heats up, big bad Wal-Mart has decided to back away from its less than positive image by opening up a chain of large convenience stores called Marketside with absolutely zero reference to Wal-Mart as the parent company.

Wal-Mart Watch calls it a "stealth" move by Wal-Mart to infiltrate into urban and exurban areas without the typical uproar caused by an opening of one of its Supercenters.

I have no idea whether the new Marketside endeavor will operate under the same low cost, low wage, low benefits principle of the world's largest retailer, but I'm betting it will.

And that's not a good thing for working class Americans despite what you'll hear from Republicans and libertarians who push unregulated free markets.

The milions of Wal-Mart employees who work for far less than living wages is testament to that.

Comments

[Cuz]

Regarding your comments about the effect of the new "Marketside" stores by Wal-mart and whether they will continue the low-wage, low-benefits policy of their parent company, I offer this concept to consider: having been a former union officer I saw first-hand how union support waned when new companies came along and offered very good benefits without unions, making it more tempting for union-shop employees to "jump-ship." But here's the catch (you could call it bait-and-switch) these new non-union shops kept the goodies flowing to the new (former union) employees just long enough to force their union competition to close their doors. Once the competition went away, so did the benefits. With no old job to return to the employee was stuck with the poorer job.

[Julie T]

Here's a chart comparing Obama vs. McCain on women's issues:
http://obama.3cdn.net/6255f7b15020963e6a_bbm6iigts.pdf

Also, check out http://www.factcheck.org/

[Mary- Lakeland, Florida]

I would like to address a comment I heard on CNN regarding Senator Palin. As if I already did not have reason enough to dis-like her, I believe it was Wolf Blitzer who stated her campaign was now targeting the “Walmart Moms”, who are, and I believe this is a quote “undereducated, lower class”. To address that remark, and I certainly wish someone else would, I take my bachelors degreed, middle class Walmart Mom self to Walmart almost weekly, as I am smart enough to realize savings when I see them. And they have the nerve to say Senator Obama is “elitist”!