BUSINESSWEEK ONLINE : AUGUST 28, 2000 ISSUE
NEWS: ANALYSIS & COMMENTARY Corporate America's Door-to-Door Campaign Business is copying Big Labor tactics this election For six weeks this summer, Russel Swanger was on a mission. The senior counsel at equipment manufacturer Harsco Corp. traveled from Pennsylvania to Oklahoma, visiting 17 company plants. His goal: to persuade 4,000 managers and administrators to vote on Nov. 7. The road trip was far from an exercise in civic duty. Although Swanger doesn't tell anyone how to vote, he doesn't need to. If he's talking to the bosses, he figures he's got an audience of Republicans who, if they show up at the polls, could tilt some key congressional races in favor of business-friendly candidates. Swanger is one of the foot soldiers Corporate America has sent to help carry out the latest Republican battle plan. Having watched pro-labor candidates bag big gains in 1996 and 1998 thanks to union-sponsored get-out-the-vote efforts, business groups are forming their own grassroots campaigns. Their focus: some 40 House and Senate races that could determine which party takes control of Congress next year. If successful, business could hand some big wins to the GOP. Swanger, whose Camp Hill (Pa.) company provides technology and equipment to steel and energy plants, hopes his efforts help counter organized labor's ''disproportionate impact'' on the vote. The Clinton-Gore ticket in 1996 was one of the main beneficiaries of grassroots labor. That year the AFL-CIO spent $15 million, the most spent by any non-party organization on grassroots mobilization. The result surprised even top labor officials. Some 23% of voter turnout came from households with at least one union member, up from 19% in 1992. Of that 23%, almost three-fourths voted to reelect Clinton-Gore. In contrast, business focused on campaign donations and issue ads. The result? As the number of voting Americans continues to decline--55% of eligible voters cast ballots in the 1992 Presidential election, 49% in 1996, and 36% in the midterm elections 1998--union households are becoming more influential than the AFL-CIO's head count of 13 million would suggest. Business doesn't want to see that trend continue, so this year the U.S. Chamber of Commerce launched a 50-state campaign to mobilize its affiliates and their members. And the National Association of Manufacturers is asking executives abroad to vote by absentee ballot. Some strategists think business can even compete with unions for the labor vote by appealing to their pocketbooks with issues like eliminating the marriage penalty. But that could spur a labor backlash against a candidate perceived as pro-management. UPHILL BATTLE. Regardless, many in business would still rather give money. So far this year, business interests have contributed $703 million, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, vs. labor's $45 million. To boost more direct activism, the Business-Industry Political Action Committee, a Washington (D.C.) group, is spending about $1 million this year on Project 2000, a Web site that offers guides to candidates' records on business issues, voter registration forms, and even absentee ballots. But even Darrell Shull, executive director of Project 2000, says it's an uphill battle. ''I'm having a tough time,'' admits Shull, who lays some blame on the candidates themselves. ''For years, [candidates] said all we had to do was support them [with money].'' Many corporate officials mistakenly believe their political involvement will violate federal election laws, Shull says. So he has been training execs like Swanger to use the Web site, explaining that the law allows participation in many work-site political activities, including on-site debates, distribution of candidate information in company newsletters, and corporate endorsements. Swanger is one exec who has been converted. He hopes his tour pays off in places like Pennsylvania's 10th district, where GOP Representative Donald L. Sherwood is locked in a battle with Democrat Patrick Casey, son of ex-governor Robert P. Casey. If they all vote, the 200 or so Harsco employees in the district could affect the race, which Sherwood won by only 515 votes two years ago. Presuming, of course, they vote the way he wants them to. By Lorraine Woellert, with Paula Dwyer, in Washington _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ BACK TO TOP					INTERACT E-Mail to Business Week Online

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