Are You a WalMart Mom or Shopper?

by Zorah N

The WSJ reports that Walmart, through independent pollsters, has polled its shoppers, mostly women, mostly “uneducated”, mostly blue-collar women.

Wal-Mart’s customer poll found that Wal-Mart women were slightly more likely to support Sen. John McCain in Ohio and Florida, and Sen. Barack Obama in Virginia, Nevada and Colorado, though only a few percentage points separated preferences in each state.

What is funny (and not ha-ha) about Walmart is that they are not really the best advocates for blue collar workers. With their dismal history on healthcare coverage and wages for its employees, Walmart is the last . Reminds me of this one party the Republican Party, who pretend to care for the rights of the people in the pretext as Rudy says in the post below, : whatever is good for business is good for the people. More from WSJ:

But as Wal-Mart Women take center stage in this year’s race for the blue-collar vote — and the economic slowdown makes Wal-Mart’s fixation on low prices fashionable with growing numbers of Americans — the criticism has quieted, a shift that is boosting the company’s efforts to burnish its image.

Let’s not forget who Walmart is, although they would like you to know that they have your interests at heart:

With more Americans turning to Wal-Mart for essentials such as food, health care and gasoline, candidates run a risk of alienating voters by assailing the company, said Neil Newhouse, a partner with the Republican polling firm Public Opinion Strategies. The firm coined the term Wal-Mart Women a year ago to categorize the voting bloc expected to be this season’s equivalent of the soccer moms of 1996 and Nascar dads of 2004. It found in a poll this month that nearly a third of expected voters now shopped at Wal-Mart. “You’re not going to bash a place that 30% of likely voters go to on a weekly basis,” Mr. Newhouse said. “It doesn’t make political sense.”

It is interesting to note that in the past year, Walmart has given more money to Dems than to the GOP (quite uncharacteristic), this according to WSJ. However, I remember during the primaries, some Walmart administrators were asking their employers to vote against the Republicans. (they are fearful that a Dem win would favor workers unionizing).

Unions or not, Walmart should realize that save for its CEO bonuses and such, the middle class, and Walmart thrive best in a Dem government.

The rest of the WSJ article here.

Interested in watching Walmart, during the elections and after? Visit this Wal*MartWatch.