In 2008 Romney's time on the board of Marriott hotel's was a persistent headache with social conservatives. High profile Republicans in Iowa denounced the fact that Marriott made a substantial amount of money playing "hard core pornography" in its hotel rooms. As Politico notes he was even referred to as a "major pornographer." Two weeks ago Mitt Romney stepped down from Marriott's board.
This weekend Marriot announced that they would no longer be offering pornography in their hotel rooms. One of Ben Smith's readers notes that while sales of pornographic movies are declining in hotels they still account for about $175 per room for Marriott chains.
How big of a favor is Marriott's decision to drop pornographic movies for Mitt Romney? Marriott's stock reports indicate that they have 607,000 rooms in fiscal year 2010. At $175 per room that adds up to Marriott giving up $106 million dollars in revenue to make Mitt's courting of social cons a little easier.
[Update 12:11 PM] - I've been informed that any stockholder in Marriott can bring an action and call for an investigation by the SEC. We're regularly told that corporations have to "maximize revenue and value for the shareholders," but in this case Marriott seems to be flushing $100 million a year down the toilet for no other reason than to support Mitt Romney's chances in the Republican primary.
[Update 12:42 PM] - The AFL-CIO's Eddie Vale emails a really powerful point that doesn't have anything to do with pornography but with the wages of working class Marriott employees. Why is the revenue stream being cut to help Romney when it could be going to raise wages of Marriott's employees?
"When it comes to folks who actually work for a living--and negotiating on their wages, benefits, etc--we always hear the mantra 'we must maximize revenue and value for the shareholders,'" AFL-CIO spokesman Eddie Vale wrote in a mass e-mail to reporters today. "Interesting how this pillar of corporate philosophy seems to have gone right out the window when it comes to helping their billionaire buddy's presidential campaign."[Update 12:46 PM] Hello Reddit! Welcome to our sucky blog following the Republican presidential candidates in 2012.
[Update 3:07 PM] Politico reporter Ben Smith says that he's yet to hear from a Marriott spokesperson about the reason they dropped pornographic movies and whether it has anything to do with Mitt Romney's candidacy. It's something that I imagine they would never say publicly considering the prospect of shareholder lawsuits.
Having said that I keep seeing the defense come up in various places that pornographic movies are in decline and that Marriott was just transitioning to the next business model. While it maybe true that high speed internet has taken a bite out of the in room movie services, Marriott's own disclosures to their investors indicate that they just gave up $100 million in revenues a year while they wait for transition to some new business model that may or may not be profitable. Just as their preferred candidate for president announces his candidacy.
It's just a matter of time before an investor starts asking the board of directors questions about how far they're willing to go to support Romney.
[Update 3:43 PM] An earlier version of this post said that a shareholder could bring up an FEC suit. I mis typed, it should have read that a shareholder can bring an SEC derivative suit.