The Chamber of Commerce has discovered that “capitalism” is a bad word and “free enterprise” is a good term, thanks to focus groups:

” ‘Capitalism’ was universally problematic,” says Chamber spokeswoman Tita Freeman. Adds Rich Thau, president of New York-based Presentation Testing, which ran the focus groups: “There were those who associated ‘capitalism’ with greed and with the powerful dominating the vulnerable.” But those negatives, he says, didn’t apply at all to “free enterprise.” … To test the various terms, Thau convened separate focus groups of Obama voters, McCain voters, and small business owners. The responses were quite similar across all three categories, he says. What surprised him most? “The number of people who associated ‘capitalism’ with increased government involvement in business. I’m still puzzling over that one.”

UPDATE: From an e-mailer, in reference to the final line above:

This fellow shouldn’t be so puzzled. It’s easy to understand this attitude if the opinion holders spell capitalism ‘capitolism’.