A group of Democratic stalwarts who campaigned for Barack Obama are organizing a new business group which is being described as a progressive alternative to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Federation of Independent Business.
The group, Business Forward, is targeting executives at high-tech firms like Google, Microsoft and IBM, many of whom supported Obama’s presidential campaign. The idea is to galvanize their continued support for Obama’s economic competitiveness agenda, including his plans for health care, education and energy reform.
Leading the charge is Jim Doyle, a former Clinton Commerce official, Democratic consultant and the husband of former top Hillary Clinton aide Patti Solis Doyle.
At a reception at the elegant Hay-Adams Hotel last week - which included participation by White House adviser Valerie Jarrett - Doyle said the group wants to reach out to executives who may be political newcomers.
“We are trying to establish a platform to keep these business leaders involved,” he said.
But the effort has already antagonized existing business associations, many of which lean Republican and whose leaders accuse the White house of trying to marginalize them. It has also angered some lobbyists who feel they’ve been relegated to the sidelines.
“The president is trying to convince businesses to join this new association to replace the Chamber [of Commerce], NFIB [National Federation of Independent Business], NAM [National Association of Manufacturers] and the Wholesalers all in one,” Jade West of the National Association of Wholesale Distributors told The Hill.
“Obama’s policies are so viscerally anti-business that it makes no sense to join this group,” West added.
Doyle denies the White House is calling the shots, and said he expects to enroll Republicans and independents as members. He said the group will function as a trade association, not a lobby group.
Board member David Sutphen said he expects members to be briefed on policy proposals and then to vote on whether to endorse them. “The whole point of Business Forward is participation and collaboration,” he told Politico.
Admission will not be cheap. Membership fees are expected to be $75,000 for founding companies and $1,500 for small businesses – not exactly an easy sell in the current economy.
All of the group’s organizers have long-established Democratic ties. Board members include Erik Smith, who had been a paid media adviser to Obama’s campaign, and Sutphen, the brother of White House Deputy Chief of Staff Mona Sutphen, a former general counsel to Sen. Edward Kennedy and now a partner with public relations giant, the Brunswick Group.
Also involved are Hilary Rosen, the former chairwoman and CEO of the Recording Industry Association of America, and Julie Andreeff Jensen, who directed get-out-the-vote efforts in Pennsylvania for the Obama campaign. Both now work at Brunswick.
The group has yet to be publicly rolled out because organizers want to have a core membership signed up first, a source told Roll Call.
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