Why Business Bashing Has Flopped

[radbag]

Why Business Bashing Has Flopped
Former CEOs and Wall Street vets are holding up well against Democratic attacks.

National Economic Council director Larry Summers is exiting the White House, and Team Obama is saying it may replace the Harvard academic with a "senior corporate executive." Consider it the White House catching up with the political winds.

Something significant is happening on the electoral battlefield, and it has an "Inc." by its name. Many candidates running as Republicans could as easily be sitting for a business profile. Twenty months of Democratic business-bashing has not turned the electorate against entrepreneurs. Quite the opposite. This election is highlighting a political turn, not unlike that of the late 1970s, in which voters are looking to free-market, pro-growth candidates to turn back government.

The Senate field? California's Carly Fiorina stewarded Hewlett Packard. Washington's Dino Rossi was in commercial real estate. Wisconsin's Ron Johnson and Arkansas's John Boozman have both built family businesses. Pennsylvania's Pat Toomey even worked on Wall Street. Gubernatorial candidates? Ohio's John Kasich was until last year an investment banker. California's Meg Whitman helmed eBay. In House races you'll find GOP small-business founders, venture capitalists, farmers.

Democrats initially greeted this boardroom flood with glee. The country was angry at Wall Street bailouts, a fury the left believed transferred to the business class as a whole. President Obama was blaming corporate America for the nation's financial woes, for health-care costs, for dodging taxes. His agenda was designed to allow Democrats to brag that they had rescued Americans from corporate tyranny, class envy, populist wrath—the ground looked fertile for this most classic of liberal attacks.

Entire campaigns were crafted around the approach, no more so than in Ohio. Within hours of Mr. Kasich's nomination, Ohio Democrats declared the race between him and Gov. Ted Strickland "a battle between Wall Street and Main Street." Democrats poured millions into the theme, with Strickland ads asking: "Does Ohio really need a congressman from Wall Street for governor?" One Reuters article declared Mr. Kasich's opponents had painted a "scarlet 'L'" (as in Lehman) on his chest.

Democrats (incorrectly) credited Mr. Toomey with being the "Wall Street wheeler-dealer" who had helped "pioneer the use of derivatives" that "wound up nearly destroying our economy." Ms. Whitman and Ms. Fiorina are routinely described as "ex-CEOs." Mr. Rossi is accused of love for "corporate" lobbyists. The fat-cat, robber-baron slur has been a staple in most Democratic campaigns.

The attacks have largely washed over GOP candidates. Seventeen points down, the Strickland campaign has now abandoned its Wall Street complaints. Mr. Toomey continues to lead Democrat Joe Sestak. The trend is so widespread that Hotline recently declared: "Dems find anti-Wall-Street flops."

One reason for the failure has been the ease with which Republicans have been able to shift the debate back to their opponents' toxic records. But the fact that many GOP candidates are actually touting their business experience suggests they are reading a turn in the polls. A recent survey, from Independent Women's Voice, found 63% of independents said they'd prefer a businessman who has new ideas to an experienced politician. A Bloomberg poll this week found that 77% of U.S. investors find Mr. Obama "anti-business."

What's behind this shift? Call it a supercharged dose of Democrats and failing liberal governance. As Americans for Tax Reform head Grover Norquist notes, the country has been witness to "pure, distilled government." It has been led by an administration staffed with career politicians and academics who have insisted that government can solve all. It hasn't worked. "When Washington fails, what's the alternative?" asks Mr. Norquist. "It's people with real-life experience, who can do real-live things." Business folk have real-life experience.

Americans have little tolerance for redistributionist policies, especially in periods of economic hardship. Voters see not an administration focused on jobs, but one obsessed with ballooning government and with taking from some and giving to others. Growth, they think, would be nice for a change. Business folk create growth.

Mike Connolly of the Club for Growth—which is backing some of the GOP entrepreneurs—notes that voters realize all businesses, not just the Fortune 500, are hurt by Obama policies. "Small business is hugely popular. And when these guys start having to lay off people, it's not chalked up to corporate greed," says Mr. Connolly. "Voters are understanding this is about health care, and regulations and taxes."

The business community has belatedly started to help itself. Corporate America never understood that its rush to cut deals with the White House—to buy protection—only fed a public perception that it stood guilty as charged. It has accomplished far more since groups such as the Business Roundtable rebelled and began explaining to the public the damage administration policies have wreaked on the economy. Even the White House now feels the need for cover by hiring one of those "senior corporate executives."

It was exactly this sort of political shift that helped buoy the Reagan Revolution. We're still a long way from a repeat, but a new crop of real-world, creative business thinkers certainly can't hurt. Thank you, Democrats.

[annarborgator]

It's got the potential to be a positive turn. Of course, we all know how shitty Reagan turned out to be as far as "turning back government".