Posted on 05/04/2004 8:37:35 AM PDT by GulliverSwift
H. J. Heinz Co. is in a pickle.
The Pittsburgh-based foodmaker has been deluged with e-mails from unhappy consumers who want to know why it's involved in the presidential campaign.
The company's emphatic answer is, "We're not," and it has hired some big-time Republican lobbyists to help spread the word.
"We make ketchup; we don't make politics," asserts Jack Smyth, a Heinz senior vice president.
Still, it's easy to see why customers might think otherwise. The multimillionaire wife of Sen. John F. Kerry, the Democrats' presumptive presidential nominee, is often referred to in the press as "the ketchup heiress." Teresa Heinz Kerry is the widow of Sen. H. John Heinz III (R-Pa.), whose great-grandfather founded the company 135 years ago. She flies around the country in a red and white Gulfstream jet with "57" in its tail number.
In March, Republicans shoved the company into the political crossfire. The Republican National Committee briefly posted on its Web site a report that said H.J. Heinz had laid off hundreds of U.S. workers while adding workers at its factories abroad. The implication, which Heinz strongly denies, was that the company associated closely with Teresa Kerry was exporting American jobs in precisely the way her husband decries on the campaign trail.
Now the company is working overtime to prove that it's neither exporting jobs nor taking sides in the presidential race. No consumer products company wants to be identified with any particular party because its success demands that it attract customers whose views span the political spectrum.
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The statement goes on to point out that the Heinz family owns less than 4 percent of the company's stock and that it's the company's "policy to refrain from commenting on presidential campaigns."
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Get the Post headline? Relish? I'm laughing inside.
So the money's being passed around by marriage. First, Teresa was the leach, to her first husband. Now Jonny's the leach. Niether one is related to the Heinz family.
But Hershey told the Heinz executive that the company shouldn't yet relish its success. "I think it's going to be difficult for the general public to draw a distinction," Hershey said, between the company and the candidate's wife who bears its name.
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Well, when the company bankrolls John Kerry's lifestyle. it's hard to distinguish between his candidacy and the company.
The lobbyists will now concentrate on other issues, such as improving anti-terrorism security for the food supply
Watch out. I hear the terrorists are planting nuclear waste in ketchup bottles. What garbage. What they really want to concentrate on is raising this quarter's profits. But they want to seem tough on terrorism like Bush.
Was the source typo intentional? ;)
It's "leech" (not to be confused with my ultra-RINO Congressman Jim Leach). ;O)
Four percent or otherwise, Teresa's the heiress. So, my family has stopped buying Heinz products. Too bad, because it had been our one-and-only ketchup-of-choice for all our lives. Now, we found the store-brand saves some scratch and tastes like it's the same recipe.
There's always Del Monte ketchup.
Heinz ketchup/catsup has one special ingredient: bile.
What is a different ketchup? The store brand? Of course it is. But, the point remains, my store brand tastes good enough to abandon Teresa and the other 96% of Heinz stockholders for good.
Can you look it up for me on dictionary.com?
Don't need to. But, since you asked, Heinz has always been "ketchup." Hunt's was always "catsup" until only recently, when they decided to admit defeat and became "ketchup," too.
"We make ketchup; we don't make politics,"
Sen. John Kerry keeps talking about U.S. corporations leaving this country and setting up shop in foreign countries, taking thousands of jobs with them. He is right, because that has happened. However, he is trying to blame it on George W. Bush.
As far as I know, Bush has not moved one factory out of this country because he is not the owner of a single factory.
That cannot be said about Kerry and his wife, Teresa Heinz-Kerry. According to the Wall Street Journal, the Kerrys own 32 factories in Europe and 18 in Asia and the Pacific. In addition, their company, the Heinz Company, leases four factories in Europe and four in Asia. Also, they own 27 factories in North Amer ica, some of which are in Mexico I wonder how many hundreds of American workers lost their jobs when these plants relocated in foreign countries.
I also wonder if the workers in Mexico and Asia are paid the same wages and benefits as workers in the United States.
Of course they're not. However, Kerry demands that other companies that relocate should pay the same benefits they did in the U.S. Why does he not demand this of the Heinz Company, since he is married to the owner?
If Kerry is elected, will he and his wife close all those foreign factories and bring all those jobs back to America? Of course they won't.
They're making millions off that cheap labor.
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