Boycott Whole Foods?

In the post from this morning about the op-ed by the CEO of Whole Foods, John Mackey, challenging Obama-care, I wondered whether left-wing Web sites would call for a boycott of Whole Foods as a way of punishing the company for the executive's decision to express his political views. Less than 24 hours later, the results are in: Jusiper: "BOYCOTT Whole Foods...Its CEO has come out foursquare against health care reform....Come on, you can do it, boycott them for at least a week and discover how much money you can save at Trader Joe's." Daily Kos is running a poll of its readers, asking, "Will you still frequent Whole Foods?" with responses when I checked running 89% (2597) no and 10% (293) yes. The "Fresh Paint" blog invokes "great boycotts of the past" and tells readers that the op-ed is "the most screaming, looney ultra-right wing bit of crap." There are plenty of reasons it's rare to see capitalists standing up publicly for capitalism, but the vehemence of the reaction from certain consumers when they do so may be one of them. It will be interesting to see whether there's any appreciable effect on Whole Foods's revenues or if this backlash is just a lot of chatter on the Web that won't actually amount to much at the cash register. Most grocery shoppers probably care more about price, selection, quality, and convenience than about the political views of the store management. And who knows, for all the left-wingers alienated by the op-ed piece by Mr. Mackey, there may be some free-market types who start shopping at the store more because of his views on health-care and his willingness to express them publicly.