The sage of Target dumping money into political races has been interesting, if not short-lived. Let’s a quick timeline:
- July 25th – it was revealed that the Target Corp. funneled $150,000 to a right-wing homophobic PAC.
- July 27th – Target CEO Gregg Steinhafel defends the donations, saying “Target’s political donations are intended to support business objectives such as job creation and economic growth”
- August 3rd – News gets big of organized boycotts of Target, stemming from Facebook, Twitter, MoveOn and numerous other groups.
- August 5th – Target reveals sales only rose by 2% in July, missing forecasts big time. This one one of the worst performers in the retail section.
- August 5th – Gregg Steinhafel emails companies employers saying he was “genuinely sorry” for how the donation story played out.
Kind of interesting when you put it in timeline form. Especially Steihafel’s massive flip-flop from last week to this, and with the news of poor performance coming out on the same day as the apology. Things that make you stop and say “hmmmm”.