The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is just doing its job: representing the interests of free enterprise. My question is how well is it doing that job?
On Politico.com, Dianna Heitz reports that Chamber President Tom Donohue warns against "over-regulation." The context is the BP oil spill. Donahue, says Heitz, warns against "doing the surgery before the diagnosis." But he doesn't make clear what exactly he means by "over-regulation." There is too much metaphor and not enough explication.
Of course, he probably means that we should strive for regulations which produce the desired outcomes in a cost-efficient way. He might have provided examples of that in the past and present and recommended that we follow that pattern in the current crisis.
As a communications pro, I am disappointed that Donahue did not use this prime space in influential Politico.com to communicate a message that would be helpful to the nation and position free enterprise in a favorable light. Business is my client base. Its point of view has to be represented in ways that create trust with government and the public, not alienate them further.
This isn't the first instance of what I perceive as inept public relations. The Chamber's recent attack on Rhode Island attorney Jack McConnell, who is up for a federal judgeship, did not present what I deem compelling reasons for its concerns. And many of us recall the Chamber's plan to stage a 21st-century version of the Scopes trial. The objective? To demonstrate the folly of the theory of global warming. Fortunately, for the sake of its members, the Chamber tossed that idea.
Will the Chamber, as Dick Morris predicted in his book VOTE.COM, lose its reason for being as more and more middleman organizations are? Its members and its critics have the tools to do their own government lobbying and grassroots messaging.
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