February 19, 2003
BLAME SAM:
A small-town Republican revolt (Christopher Caldwell, February 18 2003, Financial Times)Disaffection with "untrammelled" capitalism is rising among America's conservatively inclined, in a way that could mean trouble for Republicans. The suburbs and edge cities where the vast majority of Americans now live - and where "big-box" corporate retail outlets have left their deepest mark - appear to be shifting their political allegiance. Republicans held the suburbs from the moment they were first built until Bill Clinton wrested them from Bob Dole in the 1996 elections.That defeat could be explained away as the work of an extraordinarily weak Republican candidate, but George W. Bush defeated Al Gore in the suburbs by only 2 percentage points. Given that Mr Bush won southern suburbs by 20 percentage points, that amounted to a Democratic landslide in non- Sunbelt suburban America - the part of the country with a culture vulnerable to being wiped out by mall-builders.
David Brooks, the taxonomist of information-age society, has shown that "Bobos" and others on the commanding heights of the new economy tend to vote liberal - 13 of the country's 17 richest congressional districts are solidly Democratic. But those voters appear to be balanced out electorally by another Brooksian new-economy creature: "Patio Man", the appliance-buying denizen of the outer suburbs, who tends to vote Republican.
Now Patio Man's world is being turned upside-down. One of exurbia's bulwarks, the bankrupt chain Kmart, has undergone two rounds of closures in the past year, wiping out 607 stores and 57,000 jobs. In the world Kauffman describes - communities that had vibrant small businesses before Kmarts arrived - the now-vanished chain store appears as little more than an economic wrecking ball. Even in newer communities, such closures may signal the departure of the only job base the now heavily populated area has known. [...]
The political fallout of the shrinking suburban and rural economy is still unclear. But it is unlikely to include an endorsement of the untrammelled free market. At the zenith of small-government Republicanism almost a decade ago, voters who were asked to choose between lower taxes and more government services opted for the tax cuts by a margin of two to one. Today, that position barely gets a majority. In the last elections, Democrats were so giddy at this shift that they ignored the war on terrorism and got a well-deserved trouncing. Republicans would be unwise to count on similar luck next time.
Mr. Caldwell is usually more sensible than this. Within a couple miles of almost every one of those closing K-Marts there is likely a Wal-Mart that's cheaper, better run, and employs more people. We can certainly lament the closing of country stores and other local businesses, but to view the replacement of one mammoth chainstore by another as the end of an era is ludicrous.
Even worse, as far as the political analysis here is concerned, he says that George W. Bush won big in the suburbs that have already been Wal-martified (the Sun Belt) and lost in those that hadn't succumbed yet. So if there's a relationship between the strip mall and voting Republican, isn't the free market about to hand the GOP those other suburbs too?
Posted by Orrin Judd at February 19, 2003 11:50 AMI have for the most part stopped reading David Brooks - his analyses "Patio Man, Suburban Man" seem similar to the intellectual gobbledy-gook often seen on the left. The fact that he can't hold his own against partisan hack Mark Shields on Lehrer doesn't help either.
I agree with OJ - Caldwell is usually good but this one sounds like a clinker.
Caldwell needs to get out more.
The K-Mart nearest to my house (in Smyrna, an 'inner suburb' of Atlanta), was filty, run-down, and staffed by the biggest collection of lazy boobs you'd ever cross the street to avoid. The day before the store closings were announced, I waitied in an endless six-deep line while gabbing employees bypassed paying customers to cash their paychecks out of one of the two open registers. I felt absolutely no sympathy when that store shut its doors, and I don't miss it.
As Orin notes, there's a cheaper and better-run Wal-Mart a few miles away, with an even better Target store right next to it. And Gore (much less his would-be successors) still couldn't get elected dogcatcher in these parts.
Caldwell must live in a big city and nothing riles me more than city slickers who turn their noses up at us warehouse shopping boobs. But the main reason Kmart failed is they failed to modernize. Both Target and Walmart use the latest in inventory control and are constantly updating. And sooner or later, someone will come along and do it better than they do. Its business. And it wouldn't hurt a journalist to look up a few of the many articles over the last 5-10 years detailing Kmart's fall and Walmart's rise.
The other thing that twists my knickers, is the persistent belief that Gore got his 50% because half the electorate is liberal. It never occurs to anyone, anywhere that a lot of people may have voted for him because they thought the prior 8 years had done well (economically at least) and they didn't want to change horses. A lot of people don't pay attention to elections until the very end, so a lot of the populist rhetoric Gore spouted wasn't even on the radar screen. This doesn't mean that half will vote Dem again by any means.
It sucks even more when you realize that K-Marts are not primarily located in suburbs. K-Marts are located in large urban areas. Trust me, did my master's thesis on Kmart restructuring. Wal Mart grew in rural into suburbs, Target focused on suburbs and Kmart just stayed in the large cities assuming they were safe. How does this crap get through in a "business" paper?
Posted by: Joe at February 19, 2003 6:19 PMAgree with everyone that Kmarts were crappy stores - I don't remember ever being impressed with one and only went to one as a last resort. They also seemed indistinguishable from Bradlees, Caldors, Ames, and others in the Northeast.
As I note below trying to draw political messages from the rise and fall of business can be specious and I usually find it useless.
As to Buttercup's point about Gore I believe a good number of moderates voted for Gore because they didn't think Bush was up to the job. I don't think these people will vote Democrat in '04 unless Bush really screws up from here.
Joe--
Your comments are spot on. Did some MBA research on the topic myself. K-Mart and others thought there wasn't sufficient market mass to justify putting up a store in the sticks.
That's what's so beautiful about capitalism. A man with a plan confounds conventional wisdom and improves the lot of millions of consumers. And that is what truly bites about command-and-control economies: you can never escape conventional wisdom.
AWW:
Nothing to add really except simple agreement with your comment on David Brooks. His stuff is difficult to finish these days.
Wouldn't K-Mart stores simply be replaced by Wal-Mart Neighbourhood Markets anyway?
I prepared a presentation on Wal-Mart for my brother's job interview so I know a little about the American retail scene.