D.C. GOP to Counter Whole Foods Protest was originally published on City Desk on Aug. 20, 2009, at 5:20 pm
LL just took a call from Paul Craney, executive director of the D.C. Republican Committee, who says that his small but feisty band of partisans is not about to let the local liberal types protesting Whole Foods CEO John Mackey’s free-market health care views go unchallenged.
Not directly, though. The following morning, Craney says, as many as a dozen GOP loyalists will be at the very same P Street Whole Foods, weather permitting, distributing literature defending Mackey’s point of view, including copies of the Wall Street Journal op-ed that touched off this whole debate.
“We’re trying to show the other side of the health care debate in D.C.,” he says, “and how it affects District residents.”
LL raised the possibility, given the well-recognized progressive bent of Whole Foods soppers, that Craney et al. might find themselves subject to a barrage of $3 organic tomatoes.
“We’ll bring rain coats for the rain,” he says, “but not for the tomatoes.”
Craney notes that he’s been subject to some Whole Foods-related abuse before. He says he regularly drives his Jeep Grand Cherokee, bearing John McCain and Rudy Giuliani bumper stickers, to the Tenleytown location. “I can’t tell you how many times I get stuff put on my car that says something…snide.” His favorite: “Something about about how either Rudy Giuliani or John McCain would not like how I parked my SUV.”
They’ll be there from 10 a.m. to noon on Saturday.
