Hatin' that store: what Democrats think Wal-Mart can do for them.(POLITICS)(Wake Up Wal-Mart)

"IF that's not a winning message, then I don't know politics." Chris Kofinis is talking by cellphone from Salem, Ore., where his organization, Wake Up Wal-Mart, is conducting a rally against the nation's largest retailer. Kofinis, a former political-science teacher at Cal State who left academia to join Wesley Clark's run for the White House, believes campaigning against Wal-Mart over its allegedly unfair labor practices will be a big winner for Democrats this November--and an even bigger winner in the 2008 presidential race. "The debate about Wal-Mart is a national debate about corporate responsibility, about health care, about the role of China," Kofinis says. "This is the beginning of a debate that is going to hit a high point in '07 and '08."

Not long ago, the notion that attacking Wal-Mart was smart politics was somewhat quixotic, found mostly in union offices and on left-wing websites. Today, it's mainstream Democratic doctrine. On August 17, the New York Times ran a front-page story headlined "Eye on Election, Democrats Run as Wal-Mart Foe." Democratic candidates across the country, the paper reported, "have found a new rallying cry that many of them say could prove powerful in the midterm elections and into 2008: denouncing Wal-Mart for what they say are substandard wages and health care benefits."

Among the Democrats who have joined the anti-Wal-Mart crusade are Sen. Joe Biden, Sen. Evan Bayh, Iowa governor Tom Vilsack, New Mexico governor Bill Richardson, former senator John Edwards--that's a bunch of presidential hopefuls right there--along with members of Congress such as Rosa DeLauro, John Conyers, Sherrod Brown, and Nancy Kaptur. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, who was on Wal-Mart's board of directors back in her Arkansas days, last year returned a $5,000 contribution from the company. Opposition to Wal-Mart even brought the bitter antagonists Sen. Joe Lieberman and Ned Lamont to the same rally in Connecticut.

In all, Wake Up Wal-Mart staged 35 rallies in 19 states in the weeks leading up to Labor Day. The group's staffers, like Kofinis, traveled around the country in a 45-foot bus emblazoned with the slogans 2006 CHANGE WAL-MART, CHANGE AMERICA TOUR and JOIN AMERICA'S FIGHT FOR HEALTH CARE. The bus spent a lot of time in Iowa--the tour stopped in Cedar Rapids, Des Moines (twice), Davenport, Waterloo, Iowa City, and Council Bluffs--where Democratic presidential candidates are hanging out these days.

The substance of the anti-Wal-Mart charges heard at the rallies and elsewhere has been hashed out many times. Attacked by the Left for years, Wal-Mart has pretty effectively rebutted accusations that it destroys communities, pays substandard wages, forces states to pay for the health care of its workers, and generally behaves worse than other big-box retailers. What has changed recently is that some Democrats believe the public is now eager to hear their message.

"You see real anger among Republicans, Democrats, independents," says Kofinis, describing the Wake Up Wal-Mart rallies. "They see themselves being sacrificed to serve the interests of a very small group of individuals."

Perhaps some do, but how many? Last December, the non-partisan Pew Research Center polled 1,502 Americans--a substantial survey size--and found that most people just don't feel that way. In fact, they seem to like Wal-Mart.