About 16 months ago, Barack Obama’s White House launched a frontal assault on its neighbor across Lafayette Square, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett laid out a strategy that bypassed the chamber by reaching out directly to corporate CEOs, who Jarrett called “the actual people who are on the front lines, running businesses, trying to create jobs.” It didn’t work out all that great, according to Obama and his aides.
So on Monday, by contrast, Obama traveled across the park to pay homage to the organization it once spurned. “I’m here today because I am convinced, as Tom [Donahue, the Chamber's president] mentioned in his introduction, that we can and we must work together,” Obama said, all but erasing the memory of Obama’s previous strategy of working around the Chamber.
With two of his biggest conflicts with the Chamber–health care reform, financial regulatory reform, and climate change legislation–fading into the rearview mirror, Obama presented himself as a friendly neighbor making a warm house call. “I strolled over from across the street,” he said at the top of his remarks. “And, look, maybe if we — if we had brought over a fruitcake when I first moved in, we would have gotten off to a better start. But I’m going to make up for it.”
The last part, about making up for it, was not in his prepared remarks. But the sentiment flowed through them. At times, Obama offered himself as a pitchman for American business. “I don’t charge a commission,” he joked. At times, he presented himself as a listener. “I want to know,” he said. He also pleaded for business to help him, and the country, bring down the unemployment rate by investing now some of their significant cash reserves. “We’re in this together,” he said. “So I just want to encourage you to get in the game.”
On substance, he made no mention of climate change and only a glancing mention of health care reform. But he did promote new trade deals with South Korea, Panama and Columbia. He spoke of new tax cuts to promote investments and scientific research and technology investments. He also proposed revenue-neutral reforms to the corporate tax code, which would eliminate specialized tax breaks while lowering the overall tax rate. “We need something smarter, something simpler, something fairer,” he said. He also spoke of regulatory reforms, a hot topic for business leaders, without making any clear commitments about which regulations should be considered “outdated and unnecessary.”
But this speech was not about announcing a new initiative or set of reforms. It was about appearances. Obama was publicly withdrawing his former posture. He was endorsing the power an organization he once attempted to minimize. He was calling for cooperation after two years of rather brutal fights, which culminated with the Chamber spending more than $32 million on the midterms, almost all of it to defeat Democrats. The mood has shifted. It was a beautiful day in the neighborhood. But there are no assurances about how long the new spirit of cooperation will last.
