In Wednesday's press conference, President Obama offered an assessment of his relationship with American business that left the New York Times wondering, "Is Obama's War with the Chamber Over?"
[I]n his post-“shellacking” news conference Wednesday, Mr. Obama came close to conceding the Chamber’s main argument, that American businesses have concluded — wrongly, in Mr. Obama’s view — that his policies are anti-business.
“I think business took the message that, well, gosh, it seems like we may be always painted at the bad guy,” Mr. Obama told reporters. He admitted that relations with the business community has not been “managed by me as well as it needed to be.”
Mr. Obama did not mention the Chamber by name, or refer specifically to the public war of words that has dominated the relationship between the White House and the president’s senior staff.
But he seemed to suggest that his often-repeated goal of creating “new rules of the road” for business needed to be better balanced against a new appreciation for the need to buck-up firms that are struggling in the faltering economy....
“I think setting the right tone publicly is going to be important,” he said, “and could end up making a difference at the margins in terms of how businesses make investment decisions.”
Maybe that “new tone” will apply in the war between the Chamber and the White House as well.
Yeah, not so much. Ben Smith highlights their response, included in a BusinessWeek story.
[Chamber president Tom Donohue would] like to start by chipping away at the President's legislative achievements such as health-care and financial reform, which must still be implemented at the regulatory level.
In short, the battles between the chamber and the White House are far from over. "Oh, hell no," Donohue laughs. "They are in the second inning."
The Chamber's agenda is in direct opposition to the well-being of the majority of Americans. Having them as a foil will actually be great for Obama and the Dems, provided they use them as that foil. They want war, give them war, but just make sure to keep reminding the American people know what the Chamber is about: outsourcing our jobs.
