The election ended. The county board of supervisors lost. Wal-Mart won. It can now construct stores in unincorporated sections of the county. The best the supervisors could do now is order the roads leading to the stores closed ...
My own hypothesis (I won't dignify it with the label of theory) is that a lot of county urban dwellers voted against the measure, since they would be glad to have a Wal-Mart relatively easily accessible to them, just not in their own backyard. (The measure would not have prevented Wal-Mart superstores from being constructed inside city limits anywhere in the county.)
I wrote, and I quote:
“Wal-Mart ― and something called the ‘Contra Costa Consumers for Choice’ ― are out in force to defeat this measure, inundating voters with ‘No On L’ mailers paid for primarily by Wal-Mart (yes, it says so right here in small print: ‘With major funding provided by Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.’)”
Oops. Maybe the word “primarily” was not well-chosen. I took the liberty, last time I was over at the County Clerk's office, of looking at the financial reports for “Contra Costa Consumers for Choice”. Wal-Mart contributed around one and a quarter million dollars to this organization for its political campaign against Prop L. Want to guess how many others contributed?
Well, maybe thousands upon thousands of people sent in a few dollars each. I know no one who did, but, what the hey. But, according to the rules, every contribution of $100 or more had to be reported ― and not one was. The only reported financier of “Contra Costa Consumers for Choice” was Wal-Mart.
Is anyone out there surprised?