Our Safeway $$ Flowing Into Bush's Reappointment Fund

Bush 'Bundlers' Take Fundraising to New Level

By Thomas B. Edsall and Mike Allen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, July 14, 2003; Page A01

As chairman, president and chief executive of Safeway Inc., the world's 11th-largest grocery chain, Steven Burd is the nexus of a wide network of subordinates and suppliers, as well as friends in corporate suites. And that is why he will play a critical role in President Bush's effort to raise the largest amount of money ever spent on a presidential campaign -- not by giving a lot of money himself, but by finding a lot of people to give relatively little.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A51558-2003Jul13.html?nav=hptop_tb

Email or call Safeway Exec Steven Burn, to express our resentment that our grocery money indirectly are used to support Bush's record fund-raising?

http://www.safeway.com/contact_us_sw.asp?browser=ie&flag=0

stiff 'em -- that will help alot.

Safeway disgusts me. After the Gray Davis recall people were out in front the last time I was in there, I haven't gone back.

I telephoned the manager and confronted him. He said, "This is a grocery store and nothing more." Yeah riiiggghhhhttttttttt ....

:dem:

TODAY!!!!!

I believe Safeway now owns Tom Thumb; if you have a Reward card or a Randall's card and want to shred it, here's a good excuse!

n/t

the word out on this one! I am going to post it on some other boards. Everybody the feels strongly should do the same thing! We have got to let them know that Dems have a voice that counts!!!!

In 1915, M.B. Skaggs, an ambitious young man in the small Idaho town of American Falls, purchased a grocery store from his father. M.B.'s business strategy, to give his customers value and to expand by keeping a narrow profit margin, proved spectacularly successful. By 1926 he was operating 428 Skaggs stores in 10 states. M.B. almost doubled the size of his business that year when he merged his company with 322 Safeway (formerly Selig) stores. Two years later MB listed Safeway on the New York Stock Exchange. MB did not let the difficulties of the Great Depression dilute his pioneering focus on value for customers. In the 1930's Safeway introduced produce pricing by the pound, open dating on perishables to assure freshness, nutritional labeling, even some of the first parking lots.
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Today M.B.Skagg's value vision still drives Safeway, though on a dramatically larger scale. There are approximately 1,700 Safeway stores across the US and Canada. These include 329 Vons stores in Southern California and Nevada, 132 Randalls and Tom Thumb stores in Texas, 42 Genuardi's store in the Philadelphia area, as well as 21 Carrs stores in Alaska.



A key ingredient in Safeway's success has been the introduction of one of the most extensive private labels programs in North America. Our customers can choose from more than 2,500 products including Safeway, Lucerne and Mrs. Wright's. An additional 1,250 premium products are marketed under the award-winning Safeway SELECT label.



Our customers are also our neighbors. Safeway has always made giving back to the community a priority. In 2002 we donated approximately $100 million, money as well as merchandise, including $6 million to Second Harvest food banks and $25 million to local schools. Our employee efforts to help the disabled have raised more than $65 million for Easter Seals since 1985.


Safeway has a continuing history of environmental responsibility, starting with cardboard recycling in 1960. Our environmental policy has included replacing ozone-depleting CFC´s in our store refrigeration systems. In addition our customers have helped us recycle several million pounds of shopping bags. Even more remarkable than Safeway's community leadership and growth to one of the largest food and drug retailers in North America is that it has not come at the expense of M.B.Scagg's vision.

His strong sense of customer value that proved so innovative in American Falls in 1915, continues to work successfully in a new century.


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in Casa Ley, S.A. de C.V., a retailer in food and general merchandise retailer in western Mexico.

STORES (as of 3/22/03)*
U.S. Division Total Stores
Denver 141
Eastern (Md., Va., DC, Genuardi's) 177
Northern California (includes Hawaii) 260
Phoenix 111
Portland 118
Texas (Randalls/Tom Thumb) 138
Seattle (includes Alaska) 207
Southern California (Vons) 327
Total U.S. 1,479

Canada Operating Areas:
Alberta 84
Vancouver 75
Winnipeg 56
Total Canada 215

TOTAL U.S. & CANADA 1,694
*Excludes 113 stores in the Dominick's division, which were classified as a discontinued operation on 12/28/02.

My problem is not with Safeway per se, but with it's chairman, president & CEO Steven Burd, using my grocery purchases as leverage with Safeway suppliers to contribute to President Bush's obscene $200 million plus reappointment campaign.
I like Safeway, and have gone out of my way to shop there. It’s employees are pleasant and seem to be well treated. The selection and quality of the products are great, but Steven Burd’s fund-raising actions are very much offensive!!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A51558-2003Jul13.html?nav=hptop_tb

“As chairman, president and chief executive of Safeway Inc., the world's 11th-largest grocery chain, Steven Burd is the nexus of a wide network of subordinates and suppliers, as well as friends in corporate suites. And that is why he will play a critical role in President Bush's effort to raise the largest amount of money ever spent on a presidential campaign -- not by giving a lot of money himself, but by finding a lot of people to give relatively little.
In the jargon of political fundraising, Burd is a bundler.
At two Bush fundraising events in California last month, Burd filled 10 tables with Safeway suppliers, including rice farmers, strawberry growers and a cheese manufacturer, plus representatives of Breyers ice cream, Sunkist produce and Del Monte canned goods who paid $2,000 to hear Bush talk. Each donor wrote a four-digit "solicitor tracking code" assigned to Burd on his check so that the Safeway CEO will receive credit from Bush campaign officials and they can keep a running tally of his efforts. The possible rewards, depending on how much money he can bring in, include cocktails with campaign architect Karl Rove, dinner with Commerce Secretary Donald L. Evans and photo opportunities and sessions with the president.

but it seems to me that, aside from our dollars spent at Safeway going to pay the CEO's salary, his drumming up support from his contacts and friends wouldn't really qualify as using our money to support Bush. Maybe I am just rationalizing it because I love my Safeway - a small one, that employs some of the Lost Boys of the Sudan living in my area and lots of other really great people. I did notice some goofy special interest magazine at the check out stand the other day, glorifying Bush and his War Against Terrorism. I got the picture that I was in enemy territory.

that their employer is a sweetheart to the guy who wants their jobs to be $7.00 an hour with no benefits..:(

glad U included that merger. It never should have been allowed in CA & was disappointed when it was given the green light.

Come on SoCaliforians - Albertson's produce, or better yet, your local farmers' market is just as good or better. Plus Stater Bros.' prices R lower.

edit: added email

I love shopping at Pavilion's- the produce is beautiful, the whole food selection is great, the deli choices are delightful...so you can imagine my utter disappointment when I learned my grocery money will be funding the un-elected White House squatter's 2004 election attempt. It is a slap in the face to see my tax dollars supporting illegal invasions of sovereign countries. Thankfully, I still have control over where I spend my money for food. Safeway/Vons/Pavilions will not be receiving any in the future.

"I was very upset to hear that the CEO of Safeway is a major part of George W. Bush's campaign finance network. Unless I can be assured that none of the grocery money I spend at Safeway is being diverted to support Bush or other Republican candidates, I will shop elsewhere."

Hope you don't mind. I am rather brain dead this time of night but Safeway really pisses me off! :grr:

:dem:

Based on the political tendencies in the bay area, I'd bet most of their customers there are NOT Bush supporters.

If everybody who walked into a Safeway KNEW that money spent there was indirectly going to Bush's re-selection campaign, I wonder how many people would go to another store instead.

They let the jesus guy pass out propaganda, wonder if they'd let me?

I think that most of their customers and employes nationwide are NOT Bush supporters :mad:

might have to switch supermarkets

I sent them an email.

I've always disliked their terrible selection and depressing produce section, and now I can hate them for a political reason. Maybe having lived in Berkeley and shopped at Berkeley Bowl has turned me into a snob-- that place is Eden! Now in San Francisco, I'm having a tough time finding a good supermarket, with the closest one seeming to be the Safeway near the Embarcadero Shopping Center. Anybody have any suggestions for somebody living in the Soma district?