Live from Music Row Tuesday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. –  host Leahy welcomed the executive director of 2nd Vote, Amy Wilhite to the studio to talk about the benefits of the 2nd Vote App and how citizens can have a second chance at the ballot box through the power of their purse.
Leahy: We are delighted this morning to have in-studio Amy Wilhite, the executive director of 2nd Vote on the web at 2ndvote.com. That’s 2ndvote.com. And Amy for our listeners, we’ll want to talk about your visit to CPAC down in Orlando, Florida. Tell them what 2ndvote.com is, about the app, and why it’s important.
Wilhite: Yeah, I’d love to. So we’re a conservative watchdog group. We research basically where you shop and spend your money, whether it’s charitable dollars, your invested dollar, or your retail dollars. And we say your first vote is at the ballot box and your second vote is with your wallet. So we feel like the power is in our pocket. And we all have money, whether we have a little or a lot, and we spend it every day.
So we want to put this information out there for consumers to shop their values. So we feel like we’ve researched over 1,000 hundred companies. We have it on our website or our app. You can download it 2ndvote.com on your web browser and just add it to your home screen. And you can basically search anywhere where you’re shopping and see what their score is. We score on a score range from one to five.
Three being neutral and five being right or conservative. And then one being far left or liberal. And so we really want corporations to just stay out of the culture wars. We want corporations and companies to be neutral. We applaud them for being conservative. We are a conservative watchdog group. But we really just want them to stay out of the culture wars. And when you go buy a cup of coffee you know that’s what you’re getting.
You’re not paying for sanctuary cities. You’re not paying for abortions at Planned Parenthood. You’re not paying for things that don’t align with your values. So we put this research out there. We put the scores out there. It’s a free app. And so we just encourage consumers to shop their values and try to make an impact on the bottom line of these corporations that are attacking our traditional values.
Leahy: It seems like just about every major corporation is attacking our values.
Wilhite: It does. I mean we research and we try to find better alternatives. It’s hard today. But we also say, and we’ve been saying this as long as we’ve been around. And we’ve been around for nine years now. It was founded by Congressman Diane Black and Dr. David Black. It’s kind of a neat story. They were shopping at a grocery store and you know how you go shopping and they all say, hey, would you like to donate a dollar or two when you check out at the register?
And so Dr. Black did. And when they were walking to the car in the parking lot, Congresswoman Black said, Dave, why did you do that? And he said well, why wouldn’t I do that? And she said because that company supports Planned Parenthood. And it was actually the March of Dimes. Who would have thought that March of Dimes would?
Leahy: Every time you turnaround an institution or a corporation is supporting crazy stuff.
Wilhite: Right. And so he was like, what else do I not know? He’s a forensic toxicologist. And so he put together a group of researchers, and that’s kind of how it all started. But back to what I was saying is that we’ve always said to shop local. The money stays there in the community when you shop local. And usually, those are the folks that are in your community that you know, that you go to church with, that your kids play sports together with, that own these businesses. And they’re supporting things like your little league or your high school choir or things like that. They’re not farming this money out and funneling to the left that’s attacking our American values and what our country was founded on, Judeo Christian values.
Leahy: So if you look at this, I’m actually trying to find some companies that are on your scale of a three-point zero on a one to five scale. So three is neutral, right? And so I’m trying to find this company that fits. Most companies these days are in the two or the one category, somewhere in that range. But I’m looking at these neutral companies. Blue Bunny Ice Cream, three-point zero. Pro Flowers, three-point zero. That’s good. AAA, three-point zero. And there’s another one down here. LG Electronics, I have never heard of them. Captain D’s. Okay, so if you need to go and get some fast food, Captain D’s is neutral. That’s good.
Wilhite: We’ve also got several guides on our website. When you become a member, there are different levels. There’s like $10.00, $25.00, and you get extra content that you can actually see more research at the investors’ council level. As a member, you can actually see all the research that goes behind the score. We cite everything that we score them on and the six issues that we score.
And the top three are life, the First Amendment, Second Amendment, and there are education and the environment. So there are several issues that are important to conservatives. But also, we have these guides on our featured content. And so you can see all kinds like gas or coffee, fast food as the good shopping guide. You’ve got Papa Johns. Steak and Shake. These are all around us that we can relate to. Wendy’s, In-N-Out Burger, Bojangles, Firehouse Subs, and Five Guys.
Leahy: They are all like three-point zeros?
Wilhite:Â They’re all good. Bonefish Grill, Carabas, Cheesecake Factory, Flemings, Outback, and Waffle House. Who doesn’t love Waffle House?
Leahy: Everybody loves Waffle House.
Wilhite: I love Waffle House. I might go to Waffle House this morning.
Leahy: Let’s go on a Waffle House run right after the show.
Wilhite: Hey, I’m in any time of the day for Waffle House.
Leahy: You know what? Just another nice thing about Waffle House. So everybody there, they are very effective at providing good quality food quickly. They’re nice. I’ve never been to a Waffle House where the people aren’t nice.
Wilhite: Same. Same with me.
Leahy: It’s a great company.
Wilhite: It’s a great company. But we’ve got grocery stores, travel, gas stations. Love’s is a good one. Murphy USA. So things like that. So we do the research and we do the scoring so that people can get the quick guide to see where they want to shop. But we also have other content that they can look at.
Leahy: And the other thing that’s interesting is that with the restaurants, you have a lot of them that are neutral, which is good. But then you get into financial services, yikes! They’re not so good.
Wilhite: Not so good.
Leahy: Not so good. You got a lot of ones, one-point threes, and a bunch of lefties.
Wilhite: Right. On the score center, you can actually search from high to low or low to high. And we try to get better alternatives when we can to those. So if it might be a certain bank at the very bottom. You might look at that. And if there are any, they are not there, but we try to put them if we can.
Leahy: So I’m in financial services right now on the web at 2ndvote.com. I’m going to search high to low and very good. Yeah, we’ve got high ones. Knights of Columbus 3.67. Although they’re more of a fraternal group. Cornerstone Pay Systems three point six. ProPay, three-point three. And then a lot at three-point zero. American Financial Group, Fleet Core Technologies.
This is all good. You’ve done an awful lot of research here. Texas Capital Bank is here. And then you start going down. I’m going to do a low to high now. Low to high. Well, let’s see. You got Prudential Financial one point zero. Bank of America one point zero. Yikes! likes. And so people then kind of vote with their wallets, right?
Wilhite: Right. I think a lot of folks believe that their first vote, their actual political vote, did not count this time around. But you know what? You control your money.
Leahy: You do.
Wilhite: And so it’s your second vote that you can make every single day.
Leahy: Now, since last you were here, you’re out traveling a lot and talking to people about 2ndvote.com. You went to CPAC down in Orlando. Did you have a booth? What was that like? How did people interact? CPAC is the annual Conservative Political Action Committee meeting of conservatives. It’s been in D.C. many years, right. But this year they went down to Orlando because of all the crazy or the COVID rules and regulations in Washington, D.C.
Wilhite: I’m not sure we’ll go back to D.C. I have no control over that, but Florida was very welcoming. People were very happy to be there. The governor was there welcoming us.
Leahy: Governor DeSantis.
Wilhite: That’s right.
Leahy: He’s a rising star which is by the way and one of the reasons why our company The Tennessee Star, we have five other new sites and five other states right now. Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Virginia, and Georgia. We’re opening up The Florida Capitol Star.
Wilhite: I love it.
Leahy: In mid-April. And one of the reasons is, it’s more welcoming. And I’ll tell you also, I heard that from Roger Simon, who’ll be here at seven o’clock from The Epoch Times. He said the same thing that you’re saying right now. Also, I will tell you attitudes towards people towards customers, I think it’s better in Florida than in Washington, D.C.
Wilhite: I’m going to agree with you. I was just there. I saw it first hand.
Listen to the first hour here:
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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to the Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
Photo “Amy Wilhite” by 2ndvote.
