Chamber of Commerce to GOP: Grow Up Or Else

We’ve talked about the internecine fisticuffs engulfing the GOP of late; the moneyed interests and the anarchists just don’t see eye to eye, and that’s an awfully intractable problem.

But it’s coming to a head, more rapidly than we would have predicted. Today, the gloves are off, gone, nothing but a distant memory of… gloves.

Rages the Chamber of Commerce, everyone’s favorite right-wing bundler and D.C. weight-thrower:

“We are going to get engaged,” said Scott Reed, senior political strategist for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. “The need is now more than ever to elect people who understand the free market and not silliness.” The chamber spent $35.7 million on federal elections in 2012, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a Washington-based group that tracks campaign spending.

Sweet mother of quantitatively-eased liquidity supply! What’s the deal, Tim Pawlenty, big-time financial lobbyist and momentary electoral luminary until the cash came a’calling?

“Elections are a marketplace. Marketplaces correct over time. And if you have a product that’s not selling, you either get a different product or you get better marketing. Or both.”

The Tea Party strategy: flog that product until Granny buys it, or begs for mercy. The Chamber of Commerce strategy: sell Granny what you’ve got, and make sure to tell her it’s what she wants.

It’s the most sordid of battles, but you won’t be able to avoid it until after next year’s election.

By: rhb

Rob is a NYC-based Internet entrepreneur. He's also a businessman and job creator (wait: doesn't demand create jobs?) who understands the sense, and the eventual predominance, of the progressive agenda.