Reed Between the Lines: Chamber endorsements, electioneering proved masterful

My neighborhood association bans political yard signs.
The covenant is not really enforceable if challenged, but the dean of the neighborhood, a retired State Farm executive who lives across the street, told me he can’t recall anyone ever planting a candidate’s yard sign.
It’s kind of like Miss Manners’ advice against talking stridently about politics or religion at a dinner party. You’re bound to offend somebody, so it’s just not polite.
For the past 100 years or so, the Columbia Chamber of Commerce had a similar policy against picking sides in a political contest. The membership is a mix of Republicans and Democrats, conservatives and liberals, Libertarians and avowed independents. Endorsing a candidate is bound to alienate some members.
But Chamber members have been complaining that the City Council has become unfriendly to business interests, and efforts during the past five years to recruit successful candidates deemed pro-business have failed.
So this year, the Chamber’s leadership, which leans right of center, engaged in unprecedented political activism that included endorsements and multiple e-mails to members urging them to vote for endorsed mayoral and City Council candidates. They encouraged others to follow suit.
Chamber leaders joined with the Central Missouri Development Council to recruit candidates. Chamber executives signed Bob McDavid’s petition to enter the mayoral race.
Then the Chamber chair picked six members to recommend candidates. (Names of selection committee members were kept secret for a time, and one remains unknown.) Eleven former chairs of the Chamber signed a letter urging people to contribute money to their campaigns.
One fortuitous move was to latch on to a hot-button issue backed by all of the endorsed candidates, surveillance cameras to deter crime. The issue was portrayed in a way that no one could really argue against — Keep Columbia Safe. Even the matching blue, white and green colors of the McDavid and Proposition One campaigns appeared to be coordinated.
In short, the Chamber orchestrated a masterful campaign.
I have no argument against the decision to endorse candidates. And I’m certainly not going to argue with success. Voters elected all three endorsed candidates.
Here’s my beef: The process should have either solicited the opinions of Chamber members or been called an endorsement from the Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors. And it should have been more transparent.
Of course, the Chamber is more like a country club than a democracy. Like most organizations, and corporations for that matter, the self-selected board makes the decisions and portrays them as positions of the membership.
But it’s ironic that the political advocacy comes at the same time the Chamber is launching another laudable endeavor for members called “It’s Your Business,” an effort to communicate the business-driven benefits of a healthy economy. How about an initiative called “It’s Your Chamber”?
The Chamber has set up a system that allows for the executives to send information to every member with an e-mail address, and it’s used for the Voter Voice initiatives.
For the next election, why not turn the information in the other direction and ask members who they would prefer to see the Chamber leadership endorse? That way, no one could gripe that his or her voice wasn’t heard. And polling members would more effectively validate the endorsements.