Posted on 02/24/2004 12:09:55 PM PST by Mike Bates
After several years of shopping there, it looks like my days and evenings roaming the aisles of Costco are over. It’s a shame really.
The closest Costco, the one in Bedford Park, takes longer to drive to than the local Sam’s Club. The extra travel time was almost always worth it.
Costco has a larger variety of items. It’s well managed and rarely are there long lines as there often are at Sam’s. The store has an excellent electronics department and its spiral ham is out of this world. Holiday times are particularly good as you can always count on Costco to have imaginative seasonal items at sensible prices.
At first the idea of warehouse shopping seemed unusual. I just wasn’t in the habit of buying a dozen cans of mushroom soup at a time. The strangeness wore off when I calculated the savings involved.
I’ve been happy at Costco. But now, because of its executives’ foolishness, I’ll no longer shop there. And I don’t think I’ll be alone in abandoning it.
Bloomberg News reported earlier this month that Costco chairman Jeffrey Brotman gave $95,000 in December to the Joint Victory Campaign 2004 fund. The purpose of the fund is to "change the course of the country away from the Bush administration's radical agenda." This will be done by electing as many "progressive" (read Leftist) candidates as possible.
Also in December, Costco CEO James Sinegal gave $95,000 to the Joint Victory Campaign 2004 fund. He says he contributed because of job losses during the Bush administration, the invasion of Iraq and cuts in social spending.
Unemployment is a real problem and has been since the recession that, according to Alan Greenspan, started while Clinton was in the White House. Still, there is room for hope. In December, an all-time high of 138.5 million Americans had a job and the unemployment rate has dropped.
Mr. Sinegal calls our action in Iraq an invasion. Many people view it as the liberation of a country from a brutal, genocidal maniac bent on exporting terrorism. It’s true that the expected weapons of mass destruction haven’t been found, but many people other than George Bush believed they were there. Even French president Jacques Chirac told Time magazine last year: "There is a problem — the probable possession of weapons of mass destruction by an uncontrollable country, Iraq."
What of Mr. Sinegal’s concern about cuts in social spending? Perhaps he’s not noticed that some conservatives are unhappy with the president because he’s not doing much to curtail expanding welfare statism. Indeed, so far Mr. Bush has failed to veto a single bill sent to him by Congress.
An analyst at the Cato Institute calculated how much non-defense discretionary spending has escalated in the first three years of the Bush presidency. That figure is an eye-popping 18 percent. Some cuts.
Mr. Sinegal, according to Federal Election Commission records, has also given many thousands of dollars to the campaigns of numerous Democrats. He even gave money to someone named Howard Dean who, it is rumored, was running for president.
Mr. Brotman enjoys a similar contribution pattern. Just last June, he sent checks to Howard Dean, Joe Lieberman and John Kerry. Nothing like covering all the bases.
Quite clearly, these gentlemen have every right to use their money to defeat or elect anybody they desire. Correspondingly, I and other Costco patrons have a right not to line those guys’ pockets so they can so munificently support all those Democrats.
When conservatives boycott something, it’s often seen as a form of unfair, un-American censorship. When Leftists boycott, as they have with grapes, lettuce, Anita Bryant, Domino’s Pizza, GE and Target, just to name a few, it’s portrayed as a virtuously moral imperative.
Over the past several weeks I’ve sent a couple of emails to Costco’s headquarters asking if the company is tired of having Republican customers. Each time I’ve received a reply saying I’d hear from the company soon. Shockingly, that hasn’t happened.
Costco’s executives should have been a little smarter than to alienate a considerable portion of its customer base. In 1990 Michael Jordan ignored pressures to take sides in a North Carolina Senate race between a black Democrat and Jesse Helms. His reasoning was flawless: "Republicans buy shoes, too."
Guess I’ll find that spiral ham somewhere else from now on.
That's probably not a legal thing to do.
I know of no EEOC regulations regarding political affiliation as a basis of discrimination. Do you?
I don't get what this writer wants.
What the writer wants is not to patronize stores whose corporate execs make huge contributions to Leftists.
If these men are identified by their affiliation with Costco, they could be fired in a heartbeat. There is a huge difference between a contribution from "Jeffrey Brotman" and "Jeffrey Brotman, Chairman, Costco Inc."
I find it hard to believe that a company could not do such a thing. Remember, I'm not talking about a company-wide policy here for all employees -- I'm talking about a policy aimed specifically at officers of the corporation. I don't think they would be covered under labor laws in the first place.
I may be wrong, but at least in California, Costco cards are valid at Sam's club, which leads me to believe that they both inhabit the same corporate umbrella...
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