Like many transformations, the Chamber’s effort was born out of failure. “Just three years ago, the Chamber’s political arm orchestrated a disastrous municipal campaign…Since then, the 140-year-old collective of nearly 2,500 regional businesses has reasserted its standing in the city’s policy conversation. How this happened — and what it may signal for Seattle governance in the coming years — deserves close attention.” (“Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce teaches a lesson in political repositioning,” Seattle Times, date/link).
Instead of “girding up to re-fight the last war” only doing it “better,” we recognized that a new approach was needed. And out of these conversations, The Index, a bi-annual quality of life survey of Seattle residents, was born. Rachel describes The Index as “surfacing the opinion of voters to inform policy conversations.” This simple (in hindsight) repositioning allowed the Chamber to shift the conversation off of a campaign footing and out of Seattle’s traditional business community/establishment vs. labor and regular folks frame. The Times described this strategy as “laser-focused on narrowing the ideological space between its member businesses and the city’s broader voting population.” The Index has generated hundreds of stories in the press and is now something every policy maker and candidate for local office has to be prepared to address.
