Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Targeting Target


Target Corp gave Tom Emmer $150,000 and it really irks me!
by Charlie Leck

Let’s put it this way – bluntly! We spend a lot of money at Target. I won’t go into numbers, but it’s a lot. We buy all the grandkids significant gift cards there for their birthdays and special occasions. When we receive a notice that a family member – even a tangential one – is going to graduate, we send a Target gift card. We do an awful lot of our Christmas shopping there and also purchase many gift cards for stockings and special gifts. In addition, we shop there for our own needs on a very frequent basis. Just two weeks ago, I purchased a flat screen television there.

Here’s notice to Mr. Steinhafel, the CEO of Target Corp. You, sir, are now on probation. Know, by this notice, that we are now boycotting you and your stores and will find other outlets to supply our gift cards and general shopping needs.

Your large gift to the campaign of Tom Emmer, Republican candidate for governor is just too sickening for me to handle. It sticks in my craw. Urggh, I can’t get it out!

This Emmer character is not a good man, Mr. Steinhafel. He’s a neighbor out here. We know him. We know how he’s stiffed other neighbors and not paid his bills and gotten around it with legal mumbo-jumbo. This Emmer guy stands out on the fringe of political thinking in this state. He comes nowhere near the center of American or Minnesota politics.

The news is telling us that many of your employees are really angry about this political donation. That may be true, but you really had better think twice or thrice about your shoppers and their feelings. We, here in Minnesota, have friends all over the nation and we have, as you are well aware, means of communicating with them quickly and in large, large numbers.

For instance, Mr. Steinhafel, this blog will be read by thousands of people around the nation and many of them – most of them – nearly all of them – will be sympathetic to my rant about your absurd political contribution to the campaign of an idiot for governor. I am prepared to ask all of them to boycott your stores if you don’t withdraw that contribution and ask to have it returned.

Some of that is my money!
Remember, sir, a percentage of that contribution is my money and I’m damned mad about it. A percentage of that contribution is the money of my friends and they’re steaming about it, too.

___________________________

You can email Charles Leck
or you can sign-in to post a comment on the blog
or you can click on “follow” in the top right hand corne
r

2 comments:

  1. Unfortuneatly, this is only the beginning. The Supreme Court let the fox in the henhouse.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yes, Tony, but this is either the height of hubris or idiocy for a major retailer whose politics should be a neutral as a gray sky when it comes to partisan politics. Even issues advocacy is dicey, but openly endorsing a single candidate? Sales and PR disaster (we can only hope).

    And I'd feel the same if they were endorsing a DFLer, I assure you. No selectivity when it comes to ethics.

    ReplyDelete