Connect The Duct Tape Dots

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Washington Post links duct tape manufacturer with campaign contributions to GOP
by repost 8:24am Mon Feb 24 '03


Owner of firm that manufacturers 46% of duct tape bought in America gave money to GOP; orders have doubled, even tripled.

The GOP Home Shopping Network


By Al Kamen

Friday, February 21, 2003; Page A25

That most lamentable duct tape suggestion last week by a Homeland Security official -- which drove countless panicked citizens out to buy the product -- has been widely derided as useless and pretty crazy.

But maybe not so crazy. Turns out that nearly half -- 46 percent to be precise -- of the duct tape sold in this country is manufactured by a company in Avon, Ohio. And the founder of that company, that would be Jack Kahl, gave how much to the Republican National Committee and other GOP committees in the 2000 election cycle? Would that be more than $100,000?

His son, John Kahl, who became CEO after his father stepped down shortly after the election, told CNBC last week that "we're seeing a doubling and tripling of our sales, particularly in certain metro markets and around the coasts and borders." The plant has "gone to a 24/7 operation, which is about a 40 percent increase" over this time last year, Kahl said. The company had more than $300 million in sales in 2001.

And Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge keeps pushing the product. "You may want to have a safe shelter for four or six hours," he told PBS's Jim Lehrer on Wednesday, "until . . . the chemical plume moves on." So "you may need that duct tape."

Even if you don't want to suffocate in a shelter, there are myriad uses for the sticky stuff. The March Consumer Reports on Health newsletter hails a new study "indicating that simply covering warts with duct tape . . . works significantly better than the common chemical freezing therapy. "It's worth trying," the newsletter says.

Clearly not useless. And crazy? Like a fox. Wonder who manufactures all that plastic sheeting.

washington post