Chris Frates writes at National Journal that Crossroads GPS plans a "New Majority Agenda" of six issues:
--"Craft a lean, pro-growth tax system"--"Clean up Washington's 'downgraded' finances"--"Ensure quality health care for seniors and families"--"Restore America's energy leadership"--"Break the regulatory chokehold on economic recovery'--"Make America a respected global leader again"He quotes CEO Steven Law that election-year advocacy influences policy in the next year.
For instance, Law said, the group's polling and focus groups showed that President Obama's health care law remains generally unpopular. But, people don't feel an imminent need to change it because they don't know how it will affect them.
Crossroads GPS, Law said, plans to start "communicating to people in much more specificity about how the law works and how it impacts them in order to build a foundation for dismantling it in 2013. If that case isn't made before then, it will be hard to build the momentum to do so if we're in a position in the White House and Congress to."
Another issue ripe for definition, he said, is corporate tax reform and the role of taxes in general.
The effort is an exact analogue to the 2008 campaign Law ran to derail the Employee Free Choice Act, which would have made it easier for unions to organize. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce effort successfully defined card check as extreme legislation and a sop to labor that ultimately helped kill its chances of passing a Democratic-controlled Congress and White House.
Or, as Law put it, "We've made it radioactive by the time the new Congress was seated."
