Andy Stern: dupe of Leslie Dach?
[from a profile of my college classmate, political PR whiz Leslie
Dach - looks like Andy Stern’s falen for it]
Ethical ambidexterity is no barrier to success in the public-
relations field, particularly in Washington. Many prominent Democrats
spend the years between national elections representing corporate
clients: the political consultant Carter Eskew, who has worked for
such Democratic politicians as Al Gore and Christopher Dodd, also
worked for the tobacco industry; Mike McCurry, the former Clinton
White House press secretary, represents the telecommunications
industry in its fight against, among others, Democratic bloggers on
issues of Internet access. Democrats and Republicans frequently come
together to build bipartisan lobbying firms that seek corporate
clients; Clinton’s onetime counsel Jack Quinn, who had as a client
the international fugitive Marc Rich, for whom he helped arrange a
Presidential pardon, built a successful firm with Ed Gillespie, the
former Republican National Committee chairman.
Dach and Edelman have been innovators in their field. A press release
issued in 2000 outlines a strategy that Dach has used repeatedly to
good effect. “You’ve got an environmental disaster on your hands,”
the document reads. “Have you consulted with Greenpeace in developing
your crisis response plan? Co-opting your would-be attackers may seem
counterintuitive, but it makes sense when you consider that N.G.O.s
(non-governmental organizations) are trusted by the public nearly two
to one to ‘do what’s right’ compared with government bodies, media
organizations and corporations.” The document goes on to describe
Amnesty International, the Sierra Club, and the World Wildlife Fund
as “brands” that the public believes “do what’s right.”
Edelman’s co-option policy may already be on display at Wal-Mart.
Greenpeace has talked with the company abou the issue of
environmentally sound product packaging, and earlier this year Lee
Scott joined Andy Stern, th leader of the Service Employees
International Union, in a coalition of businesses and unions calling
for quality healt care to be made available to all Americans by 2012.
Stern, whose union pays for the activities of a group called Wal-Mart
Watch, which regularly criticizes the company, told me he did not
believe that he had been co-opted by Wal-Mart but his allies in the
labor movement weren’t so sure. “Anyone who wants to take health-care
lessons from Wal-Mart, Chris Kofinis, of Wake Up Wal-Mart, said,
“needs to have a serious reality check.” Government-sponsored
universa health coverage would, of course, free Wal-Mart and other
companies of the burden of providing health insurance fo their employees
Dach declined to take credit for Wal-Mart’s foray into the health-
care-policy debate, but Richard Edelman suggested that he is seeing
Dach’s influence on the company. Edelman called Dach an “idealist”
who has carried to Wal-Mart his fervor for such traditional
Democratic causes as universal health care and environmentalism. “I
feel very strongly that Leslie Dach is making a very real
contribution to Wal-Mart,” he said. “When he left, I didn’t get
weepy, but I said, ‘Go and make a great contribution.’ “
Wal-Mart, in turn, is making a great contribution to Dach: he was
given three million dollars in stock and a hundred and sixty-eight
thousand stock options, in addition to an undisclosed base salary. He
and his wife, a nutritionist, recently bought a $2.7-million house in
the Cleveland Park neighborhood of Washington. He commutes to
Bentonville during the week, to an apartment furnished out of a Wal-
Mart store.