During a meeting in the West Wing of the White House this month, President Barack Obama’s aides posed an unusual question to business leaders across the table: How can the administration help House Speaker John Boehner? Obama’s interest in helping Boehner is part of a broader White House effort to enlist executives to support Republicans who are willing to deal with the administration. It’s also aimed at exposing divisions within the opposition party. The White House session sought to coordinate efforts to pass immigration legislation, an achievement that would boost the electoral chances of some of Boehner’s Republicans even as it sparks opposition from Tea Party lawmakers. As corporate America grows frustrated with Tea Party influence over Republican leaders, the president, who in his first term once derided “fat-cat bankers on Wall Street,” is now reaching out to chief executive officers for help on issues from the budget to immigration laws. “The White House and Democratic leadership are certainly appealing to the business community’s disenchantment with the GOP,” said Kathryn Wylde, CEO of the Partnership for New York City, an association of leaders of companies, including Goldman Sachs Group Inc.and JPMorgan Chase & Co. One result could be the isolation of the Tea Party from businesspeople, donors and the Republican Party itself. Five Meetings After years of a fractured relationship and fitful efforts to mend ties, Obama has had no fewer than five meetings and a conference call with CEOs since the start of October, according to an administration official. He spoke to a […]

Call it a test case for the 2014 congressional elections. Tomorrow’s contest for Virginia’s next governor is drawing attention as a national harbinger, and it’s giving Republicans plenty to worry about. Polls show Democrat Terry McAuliffe, the former national party chairman and fundraiser, ahead of Republican rival, state Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli. If that’s the outcome of the race, it would make McAuliffe the first candidate of a sitting president’s party in almost four decades to win election in the Old Dominion, a state that voted twice for both former President George W. Bush and President Barack Obama. “As Republicans, we have to ask, is there a business model issue here?” said former Virginia Republican Representative Thomas M. Davis III, director of federal affairs for Deloitte Consulting LP. “We have a Republican who’s opted to go theTea Party route, and it’s absolutely clear it’s a losing strategy — that’s going to be the message of this” election. The contest has taken on national significance in its closing days, with each candidate working to portray his opponent as a poster boy for all that is wrong with his party. McAuliffe, 56, who campaigned with Obama yesterday and appears with Vice President Joe Biden today, is painting Cuccinelli as an ally of the small-government Tea Party movement that orchestrated last month’s 16-day federal government shutdown. “Ken Cuccinelli has spent his career creating gridlock from the political fringe,” McAuliffe said during his appearance with the president in Arlington. “The question in this election is simple: Will the mainstream, bipartisan majority in […]