Business To '06 Candidates: Wise Up Or Prepare To Lose
The Business and Industry Political Action Committee (BIPAC), a potent force in Congressional and state elections, is warning both parties that voters are ready to nationalize the 2006 election and punish incumbents with unusual force next November.
But BIPAC is confident that what it calls a "pro-business, pro-growth" coalition will survive and may even be strengthened, even as immigration threatens to divide the traditionally pro-business GOP in primaries.
In a briefing for reporters today, BIPAC's president, Greg Casey, said the group will target elections in 30 states in 2006, helping employers communicate pro-business messages to employees and deploying field staff to turn out the investor class. They range from guberatorial races in a half dozen states to state legislative contests and state supreme court elections.
Though both Casey and his veteran political numbers cruncher, SVP Bernadette Budde, declined to project whether the GOP would retain control of both house of Congress, they acknowledged that voters have little to like about the governing party.
"If the business community does its job, there will probably be a pro-business, pro-growth [majority] in Congress regardless of which party is in control," Budde said.
BIPAC's top tier includes races in FL, PA, MN and OH, followed by WA, WI, NV, IA and TN.
The group plans to target Senate races in NJ, MD and WA, believing that the national mood will put those three states in play, even though the incumbents are Democrats.
"The fix-it revolution is going to take out people who didn't see it coming," said Budde.
She argues that in an atmosphere when voters deplore the rhetoric and tactics of both parties, voters pay much more attention to the attributes of individual candidates. And in an era when even small sub-interest groups (like environmenalists) can spend millions to influence races, previously safe seats are up for grabs. "A little can mean a lot," said Budde.
In the 2004 election, BIPAC spent millions to help employers communicate with workers, sending out 40 million targeted messages and deploying more than 75 field staff on election day. Compared to other interest groups and certainly to what organized labor did for Dems, that's relatively small.
But BIPAC likes to point out how voters say that information from their employer is at least as reliable as what they get from unions (and more so than either political party) and Republicans credit the group with revolutionizing the way employers leverage the votes of their employees. [MARC AMBINDER]