There’s a proposal on the June municipal election ballot in Redlands to ban Wal-Mart from opening a new super center in town. I have no idea if it’s going to succeed or not, but one yardstick is the seriousness with which Wal-Mart is taking the threat of the proposed ban; the company has mounted a fairly massive campaign to combat the proposal.  I myself have answered at least three phone surveys and gotten at least two mailings from Wal-Mart funded organizations campaigning against the proposal in the past few weeks. And I just talked to an astroturf canvasser on the street who was against it.

There’s an ugly subtext of class in the debate, because a lot of people read Measure O as “rich people against stores for the working class.” My door-to-door campaigner made more or less that point but was careful to couch it in acceptable terms: “there are always going to be people who prefer to shop downtown but then there are more modern people who like to go to malls.” And what passes for high caste around here is more like a lace-curtain petit bourgeoisie ruling class.  (Anyway, real old-money ruling class WASPs are cheapskates who love Wal-Mart.)

I’m planning to vote against the ban, because I don’t think its the role of municipal government to dictate what type of stores are allowed in town, but all of this corporate campaigning is a turnoff to me and is, ironically, something that would push me to vote the other way.