http://thehill.com/blogs/transportation-report/aviation/188751-chamber-hits-nlrb-with-ad-campaignBy Kevin Bogardus - 10/20/11 11:05 AM ET
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce launched a new round of television ads Thursday targeting the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).
Slated to run in Florida, Pennsylvania and Virginia, the ads take issue with the labor board’s April 20 complaint against Boeing for allegedly retaliating against union workers.
Boeing came under NLRB scrutiny when it started a production line in South Carolina for its new 787 Dreamliner jet after its executives expressed worries about work stoppages at their unionized operations in the state of Washington.
“Telling employers where they can locate and who they can hire won’t grow the economy or create new jobs,” said Glenn Spencer, executive director of the Chamber's Workforce Freedom Initiative, in a statement. “Elected officials should stop the NLRB from pursuing its economically destructive agenda — now and next year.”
A Chamber spokesman said the business group doesn't discuss spending on ads but did say it was “a significant buy” and that the ads will run for a week.
FULL story at link.
It looks like the U.S. Chamber is breaking it's promise not to campaign against the President's reelection. Why would the U.S. Chamber run ads in battleground states (not, say, South Carolina) against the NLRB? And for the record, not running advertisements against the incumbent president has long been a policy of the U.S. Chamber.
FLASHBACK:
U.S. Chamber of Commerce won’t seek Obama defeat in 2012
President Obama is catching a major break ahead of his 2012 re-election campaign — sort of.
By Holly Bailey | The Ticket – Thu, Nov 18, 2010
http://yhoo.it/q9e2qq The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which spent more than $32 million to boost GOP candidates in 2010, announced Wednesday that it won't campaign against Obama in the upcoming presidential campaign.
But in his speech to the group's membership, Chamber President Tom Donahue appeared to leave his high-powered lobbying group a little wiggle room. While he said the group won't campaign against Obama, Donahue also said it won't back down from its opposition to Obama's policies, likening them to a "regulatory tsunami."
Translated from D.C. campaign code, that probably means the group won't run ads specifically calling for Obama's defeat or talking up potential rivals -- but will leave the door open to running spots critical of the president's policies, as it did in scores of House and Senate races in 2010.
"This is not personal," Donahue said, according to AP's Jim Kuhnhenn.
Donahue said that his group was looking for areas of cooperation with the administration after a bruising midterm election that featured the president repeatedly slamming the group for not revealing donors funding its multimillion-dollar TV ad campaign. And while the Chamber of Commerce may be willing to take it easy on Obama, it's unlikely that the group will take a neutral stance in House and Senate races in 2012, since Congress will probably be far more influential in helping the group achieve its legislative goals.