But the real reason I oppose him is his wife’s deep connections to WAL-MART. Lynn Sweet of the Chicago Sun-Times published an article about this highly controversial connection in May. According to Sweet, Michelle Obama is no longer connected to the company. But this was not a decision Michelle Obama made on her own volition. Following the lead of her husband’s vague campaign, Michelle Obama quit the company that ties her deeply to WAL-MART. According to Lynn Sweet,
Michelle Obama resigned Tuesday from the board of TreeHouse Foods Inc., a Wal-Mart vendor, eight days after husband and White House hopeful Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) said he would not shop at the anti-union store.
I guess Obama’s attempt to pander to AFL-CIO union voers in Trenton, NJ, created a conflict with one of the Obama family’s sources of income.
Michelle Obama sat on the Board of this Wal-Mart friendly company since June 27, 2005, or just a few months after Obama was elected to the US Senate. Michelle Obama, also a VP of The University of Chicago Hospitals in charge of “community outreach,” did not have experience in the private sector before serving on the Board of the WAL-MART ally. In fact, she chose to pursue the Board position in order to gain experience in the private sector, and this experience was made available to her after her husband was elected to the US Senate. According to
the London Telegraph,
[S]he has just been re-elected to the board of an Illinois food-processing company, a position she took up two years ago to gain experience of the private sector.
She was reelected to the lucrative post on April 19, 2007, or three months after Barack Obama began actively campaigning for the Presidency.
But how did she obtain the position? According to Lynn Sweet, she undertook the position with the WAL-MART ally in order to gain experience in the private sector. Here is a summary of her experience before serving on the Board of a WAL-MART ally:
A Harvard-trained lawyer, Michelle Obama began her career as an attorney at the Chicago law firm of Sidley Austin, and later went to work at Chicago City Hall and at the non-profit group Public Allies, a leadership program for young adults.
And she holds the sinecure of part-time VP at the University of Chicago Hospitals while working for the WAL-MART friendly vendor. But if she had no experience in the private sector, why was she elected to the post? Is that not a risk for the company? Or did the company want a link to a US Senator?
Obama, according to Lynn Sweet and to other who reported on his statements before the AFL-CIO in Trenton, NJ, said the following:
On May 14, during an AFL-CIO forum in Trenton, N.J., Sen. Obama was asked about Wal-Mart. “I won’t shop there,” he said. Chief rival Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) served on the Wal-Mart board between 1986 and 1992.
He also made the these pronouncements, which are reproduced in the London Telegraph story:
As the Illinois senator prepared to join the presidential fray late last year, he threw his weight behind the union-backed campaign against Wal-Mart. He declared that there was a “moral responsibility to stand up and fight” the company and “force them to examine their own corporate values”.
But how can he denounce WAL-MART’s values and claim he would never shop there when his wife has over $100,000 of salary, stocks and benefits from a company that engages in very friendly practices with WAL-MART? According to CBS2 Chicago,
The company, which supplies retail grocery chains with pickles, nondairy powdered creamer and other products, said Wal-Mart was its largest customer last year, according to an SEC filing.
In other words, TreeHouse Foods and WAL-MART are close business partners.
Now the Obamas have not provided compelling answers when asked about this egregious conflict of interest. Here is Michelle Obama:
Barack is gonna say what needs to be said, and it’s not going to, you know, necessarily matter … what I’m doing if it’s not the right thing,” she said. “He’s going to do what’s right for … the country. He’s going to speak out. And he’s going to, you know, implement his views as he sees fit. … I see no conflict in that.”
According to Michelle Obama, her affiliation with WAL-MART through the sinecure she held at TreeHouse Foods, does not “necessarily matter.” In fact, she “sees no conflict in it,” as Barack will “say what needs to be said” in order to win the Presidency.
But the cynicism does not stop there. Here is Barack Obama in the London Telegraph:
Sen Obama’s campaign team and Mrs Obama’s spokesman did not respond to requests by The Sunday Telegraph for comment. But the senator previously told Crain’s Chicago Business magazine that, while his views on corporate reform and social justice remained the same regardless of what happens at Treehouse, “Michelle and I have to live in the world and pay taxes and pay for our kids and save for retirement”.
So for Obama it is just a bunch of words: he and Michelle can profit from WAL-MART through a company that is one of its biggest allies, for they have to take care of their own.
That Obama’s opposition to WAL-MART is just a bunch of words is admitted by a spokesman the Obama campaign managed to find to defend this conflict of interest. Chris Kofinis, Communications Director of WakeUpWalMart.org, just one of many activist groups who oppose WAL-MART, made the following excuses for Obama:
“Many companies do business with Wal-Mart,” said Chris Kofinis, communications director for WakeUpWalMart.com, a project of the United Food and Commercial Workers union. “The difference is whether one stays silent on Wal-Mart’s negative business practices or not. Sen. Obama has not stayed silent, and he should be applauded for that.”
So for Kofinis, who ostensibly opposes WAL-MART, endorses doing business with WAL-MART. And for him, mere words are enough. Since the Obama campaign’s opposition to WAL-MART is just words, I imagine Kofinis, who is just one of many critics, and not necessarily the most effective critic, is satisfied with these mere words. But what about the $100,000 the Obama family now possesses as a result of their collusion with WAL-MART?
It is significant that the Obama’s view opposition to WAL-MART as so many words to be uttered during a campaign. Obama is from Chicago, and the Chicago City Council voted to force stores such as WAL-MART to pay living wages, not minimum wages, if they were to build facilities in the City of Chicago. The vote on the Big Box Ordinance occurred in late July 2006. Richard Daley vetoed it on September 11, 2006, when Bush was visiting Chicag
o. This was Daley’s first veto after serving as Mayor of Chicago in 17 years. All this occurred while Michelle Obama sat on the Board of the WAL-MART friendly company.
Barack Obama endorsed Daley for Mayor in January 2007. And Michelle Obama was still on the Board of Tree House Foods when this endorsement occurred. And Obama made this endorsement despite all the reports on cronyism and corruption in City Hall. In fact, Obama ran into trouble with Daley in 2005 after making comments about Daley’s corruption.
Why the reverse on his stance on corruption? Did it have anything to do with WAL-MART, the Big Box Ordinance and his wife’s affiliation with a WAL-MART friendly company? And if Obama is so vocal in his opposition to WAL-MART, why endorse a Mayor who vetoed a bill that would force WAL-MART to change its corporate policies,? Is this not what Obama says they should do when engaging with AFL-CIO voters? Or is it all just words? Or is it just words in the right place at the right time? To quote Michelle Obama again:
Barack is gonna say what needs to be said, and it’s not going to, you know, necessarily matter…
Indeed, it will not necessarily matter, for the Obamas have their $100,000, and WAL-MART has an ally in Chicago City Hall.
From the tone of your post, you would think that Michele Obama founded Wal-Mart. She was a director of TreeHouse Foods, a manufacturer of private label food products. According to the company’s annual report, Wal-Mart accounted for about 16% of TreeHouse’s sales–84% of the company’s revenue came from other customers.
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Wal-Mart has thousands of suppliers, and is probably the biggest customer of many of them. What is your basis for saying TreeHouse is one of Wal-Mart’s “biggest allies.”
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Your statement that TreeHouse was interested in Ms. Obama for political reasons might be true. Did she do anything to help TreeHouse in the political arena? Did she do anything to help Wal-Mart?
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I don’t like Wal-Mart. I don’t shop there. They have a negative effect on the communities they enter. However, if you want to smear Sen. Obama, you’re going to have to do better than that.
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largest customer is WAL-MART. And yes, they may have wanted her politically. This is why I ask about Obama’s silence during Daley’s veto of the Big Box Ordinance, which would have required WAL-MART, of whom TreeHouse is the largest customer and thus a large source of revenue, to pay living wages and not minimum wages for employees who would work in any facilities built in the city limits of Chicago. Obama never came out in support of the ordinance, and he said nothing when Daley vetoed it. And then he endorsed Daley, and this all occurred when Michelle Obama worked for the WAL-MART ally.
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But he will go to Trenton, NJ, and use WAL-MART as a rhetorical device before AFL-CIO members. I see a lot of cynicism, and I see a lot of questions I need answered. And Michelle Obama resigned after Obama’s comments in Trenton, NJ. Why did she resign if the connection was tenuous? And why did she discuss this on national television? And why did over seven major new outlets report on this if there was indeed no there there?
has, asi its largest customer, Wal-Mart. I don’t think that makes them an ally of Wal-Mart, it just means that they manufacture or produce consumer products.
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This seems like a rather attenuated connection.
below. i find it very compelling. indeed, it highlights the potential for conflicts, especially as a supplier for which michelle obama worked stood to profit if daley opened the doors of chicago to wal-mart usa.
From what I can tell from 30 seconds of Googling, TreeHouse foods is a pretty big player in the production of pickles, soups and non-dairy creamers.
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So, like every single other major food producer, Wal-Mart is their single largest customer. If they are like every other producer, they sell to Wal-Mart in order to maintain market share, not to make a profit. Indeed, your assertion that this company stands to benefit from selling product through Wal-Mart indicates a rather significant lack of understanding of how Wal-Mart is so successful.
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The truth is that if TreeHouse can supply the mythical Mom-n-Pops in Chicago rather than selling through Wal-Mart, they stand to make far, far more money, because Mom-n-Pop pay much more for the pickles in the first place.
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A Wal-Mart opening in Chicago does not benefit the wholesalers that sell to Wal-Mart; it benefits Wal-Mart. And maybe the Chicagoans who might like a significantly reduced grocery bill.
shopping experience, the obliteration of communities and low paying jobs by a corporation that has no plan whatsoever to invest in the community structure is what one is looking for, the i guess wal-MART is the answer.
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I still remain convinced that Tree House foods would benefit from increased demand if the Chicago market is opened to WAL-MART, and I do find it significant that she sat on that board when Daley vetoed the bill and Obama remained silent.
Suffice it to say that I think that Walmarts are a mixed blessing in suburbia. In urbia, it seems to me that the mixed blessings skew more in favor of the positive.
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Regardless of whether its arrival is a blessing or curse, this supposed “deep” connection is quite attenuated.
is deeply imbricated with multiple tiles, including those of richard daley, those of the oppositional forces to the big box ordinace, those of a company with a major WAL-MART interest and those of a presidential campaign that needed daley’s endorsement, lest that endorsement go to hillary clinton, who is also a wal-mart candidate.
According to the TreeHouse annual report on the SEC website,
What this says to me is that they have many customers, and do not rely excessively on Wal-Mart. I think it is misleading to call Wal-Mart their biggest customer without putting the number in there (11.7%). When people hear “biggest”, they easily assume you mean more than 50% of sales. If you want your case to get any traction, you need to be as candid about the numbers as would be your harshest critic. If you can’t be, you don’t really have a case so much as inuendo and exageration, IMO.
in the diary, they are the biggest client. wal-mart holds a plurality of tree house foods’ interests. it may not be a huge plurality, but it is a plurality nonetheless.
how do you define plurality? usually that means >50%, or a majority. Wal-Mart is only one of numerous customers, and accounts for only 11.7% of their business. this is in no way a plurality. but who cares, really. if you need to fudge the truth, you have no case. best of luck with your smear!
is less than 50% but a majority.
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it is pretty clear there is a conflict of interest. I just hope the obamas explain it to the public sooner rather than later, because this is not disappearing.
So you attack a leading Presdiential candidate by pointing out that (1) his wife is (2) one of several board members of (3) a vendor that has Wal-Mart as one of several clients, with (4) no evidence whatsoever that this has played any role in Obama’s politics, and in fact providing evidence that the opposite is true. By my count, that’s at least 3 steps away from being relevant.
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If this is what counts as oppo research on Obama campaign, I’d say he’s in pretty good shape.
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2. Distribution can be higher, but there are no WAL-MARTs in Chicago, as Chicago has blocked WAL-MART development. This reduces potential product sales.
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3. Chicago City Council motions to even make it more difficult for WAL-MART to build in Chicago.
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4. Daley vetoes their bill, thereby making it easier for WAL-MART to build in Chicago. If they build facilities, this increases WAL-MART sales and distribution from Tree House, as WAL-MART is the biggest customer of TreeHouse.
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5. Obama says nothing, even though he fashions himself as a community organizer and WAL-MART opponent. His wife, meanwhile, sits on a board of a company that stands to profit big if WAL-MART can sell products in Chicago.
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6. Obama uses WAL-MART as rhetorical device with unions, and Michelle and probably her company see a huge conflict. She resigns.
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That is the problem here. Her company profits from the Daley veto. That is why Obama was silent, and that is why she resigned in May, for they did not want anyone to notice. And that is why Daley and Obama endorsed one another within a period of two weeks.
This is quite the stretch.
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I’d hazard to guess that almost anyone in business and/or politics can be connected to Wal-Mart. Approximately 100 million people shop at Wal-Mart’s 3400 American stores every week. Over a million people work there (at less than $10 an hour, on average).
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To make these claims about Obama’s wife (twice) without once referring to Hillary’s much closer connections to Wal-Mart is very decieiving.
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Between 1986 and 1992, Hillary served on the Arkansas-based company’s board of directors for about $12,500 per year. During the 1992 campaign, she still owned about $80,000 in Wal-Mart stock. Members of the Walton family (which owns Wal-Mart) were major donors to and fundraisers for Bill’s presidential campaign. There’s many more connections but they are as distant as Obama’s.
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Edwards (and, as I said, probabbly virtually everyone in politics and business also has connections to Wal-Mart).
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So, let’s be fair, shall we?
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For the record, I support Clinton for President and think Wal-Mart (and the globalization trend it represents) is truly evil.
…the dumbest posts I’ve read here.
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There are several reasons to question Obama’s run for the presidency at this point in time–particularly possible lack of experience–it is silly to suggest that his wife’s work on the board of directors of a company that on the open market happens to supply product to Wal-Mart is not one of them.
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BTW, the London Telegraph is considered to be far right wing, even for the United Kingdom. Why they would publish something like this is a bit obscure, but the only British publications worth reading are the Guardian and to a lesser extent, the London Times (even though the Times is owned by Murdoch).
a local supplier who would stand to benefit from Wal-Mart’s sale of product in a city that has banned Wal-Mart from building facilities in its limits is not a potential problem when the wife of a Senator sits on its Board? It does not take much imagination or creativity to see the potential conflict, especially as I have outlined it didacticially in the comment above. And how do you explain Obama’s endorsement of Daley and Obama’s silence on the issue when the Big Box Ordinance was considered?
Please identify one action that she took on behalf of Wal-Mart.
what actions did she and her husband FAIL to take against wal-mart during the big box ordinance debates in city hall while she was sitting on the board of a major wal-mart supplier?
vituperative assessment. let us try to be civil.
This guy needs a Killer Coke and a smile.
That didn’t work out too well for Patrick’s opponents, however, and I doubt this will get any traction either.
Hey, Obama is pretty much a the bottom of my list right now, but for reasons that don’t have much to do with this article. At this stage, spouses are fair game, and heaven knows the Edwards people talk up John’s spouse, and you can’t tell me Hillary’s husband isn’t a factor.
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But this is a stretch too far. Just because a company supplies Wal-Mart doesn’t mean that it’s a “friendly” relationship by an stretch. As you can see in this excellent article from 2003, supplying Wal-Mart doesn’t make you friends…closer to slaves. Wal-Mart will kill your company in return for the privilege of supplying them, and treat you more as an independent contractor in thrall than a business partner. Sure, Michelle’s company made 1 out of 6 sales to the big W, but that’s hardly being a corporate partner.
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That said, Obama’s quote about “living in the real world and paying taxes” is interesting. Strange that when other Democratic candidates talk about dislike for taxes, they get slapped around, but Obama once again gets a free ride. Anyway, I’d love to walk into a 100K position because I need “private sector experience” — who do I have to marry to suddenly become a candidate?
…isn’t exactly “private sector experience”–it is more likely that she was put on the board because of her political connections–but I’ll reiterate that the post above is dumb.
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It is good that the company on whose board that she sat didn’t let Wal-Mart be more than 16% of its business. If it did, Wal-Mart would have essentially controlled the company.
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If the company had made use of something like slave labor to produce its products, I might have a different opinion on the matter. But there is no evidence–even from the article in the right-wing London Telegraph–that it did.
of her sitting on a Board as a result of political connections with a company whose biggest customer was vying for the chicago market still stands, and this remains significant. setting aside the unfair insult, i agree that her position on that board was wholly political, and the chronology of events supports that argument. this needs to be explored in more depth. but it remains that tree house would benefit from wal-mart’s expansion into the chicago market.
I’ll just link to the page that announced to the formation of Treehouse Foods Dean Foods announces plan to spin-off its specialty foods group It was a spin-off of a pre-existing food company.
that is unfortunate.
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but how does one explain obama’s unwillingness to fight for chicago’s independence from WAL-MART, only to then later tell New Jersey union members that he opposes wal-mart? Just words for the campaign, I guess.
Seeing how this is their first post…and it was a weak hachet job?
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Here’s my prediction…a one hit wonder…or sincerely a one note poster.
Yet another pearl of wisdom…wrong dude
NO….NOOOOO NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Wal-Mart….
Wanna bet you and yours shop there…. Who cares what they own…who they “work” for…His problems are much bigger than his wife and the doom’s day Wal-Mart connection..how about the fact that he is an empty suit…devoid of anything but his skin color and will only get votes from guilty white folk….