Hullabaloo

Friday, August 10, 2012

 
Crocodile tears salting your pizza

by digby

I haven't eaten at a chain pizzeria in decades, but in another life I worked on some commercials for Papa John's pizza. As I recall it was pretty good but the crust, as is so often the case with chain restaurants, was so sweet it was like eating a donut with pizza sauce and cheese on it. The owner, John Schnatter, was a very friendly guy, very involved in the ad campaign and quite generous with the crew. But I'm not surprised he's a big Republican out there talking down Obamacare. After all, why should he want to pay for his employees to have health care when he can just fire them if they get sick?

Still, his crocodile tears about having to add an extra 15 cents per pizza are a little over the top. The Obama years have been good to Papa John's:

I frankly don't think that paying an extra 15 cents for a pizza so that the employees can have health care is too big a price to pay. (After all, they're probably all eating them too and getting the same diseases as the rest of us that result from living on transfats and sugar .) But let's not pretend that Papa John's has to do it. It's not like they're struggling on the margins.

I'm not sure why these CEOs feel it's in their best interest these days to shoot their mouths off about politics, especially when they can buy all the real influence they want. In this polarized country it risks alienating half their customers. But hey, it's free country and they have every right to say anything they want. (According to the Supreme Court they have every right to spend every last dollar ensuring that their voices are heard above everyone elses.) But it strikes me as being more to do with ego than business.

I wouldn't have eaten at Papa John's anyway, for the reasons I mentioned. But he's probably lost a few customers and I can't see what he got for it.

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digby 8/10/2012 09:00:00 AM