Romney's Business Experience Does Not Qualify Him For The Presidency

(This caricature of economist & columnist Paul Krugman is by DonkeyHotey.)

There is a feeling among Republicans that the best experience for the presidency is experience in business -- especially in running a business. They tout the many millions of dollars that Romney made for Bain Capital as proof that he would be a good president. I disagree. A president must create jobs, and all Romney has been good at is destroying (or outsourcing) jobs. Pulitzer Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman also disagrees. Here is how he puts it:

Now, the truth is even under the best of circumstances, the case for electing a businessman as president would be very weak. A country is not a company – does any company sell more than 80 percent of what it makes to its own workers, the way America does? — and competitive success in business bears no particular relationship to the principles of macroeconomic policy. So even if Romney were a true captain of industry, a latter-day Andrew Carnegie, this wouldn’t be a strong qualification.

In any case, however, Romney wasn’t that kind of businessman. He didn’t build businesses, he bought and sold them – sometimes restructuring them in ways that added jobs, often in ways that preserved profits but destroyed jobs, and fairly often in ways that extracted money for Bain but killed the business in the process.

And recently the Washington Post added a further piece of information: Bain invested in companies that specialized in helping other companies get rid of employees, either in the United States or overall, by outsourcing work to outside suppliers and offshoring work to other countries.

The Romney camp went ballistic, accusing the Post of confusing outsourcing and offshoring, but this is a pretty pathetic defense. For one thing, there weren’t any actual errors in the article. For another, it’s simply not true, as the Romney people would have you believe, that domestic outsourcing is entirely innocuous. On the contrary, it’s often a way to replace well-paid employees who receive decent health and retirement benefits with low-wage, low-benefit employees at subcontracting firms. That is, it’s still about redistribution from middle-class Americans to a small minority at the top.

Arguably, that’s just business – but it’s not the kind of business that makes you especially want to see Romney as president.

Or put it a different way: Romney wasn’t so much a captain of industry as a captain of deindustrialization, making big profits for his firm (and himself) by helping to dismantle the implicit social contract that used to make America a middle-class society.

So now he proposes bringing the skills and techniques he used in business to the White House. Somehow, I’m not enthusiastic about the prospect.

The Only Issue That Matters In 2008

The mainstream media have chattered incessantly in this presidential race about what issues are the most important. Some would have you believe that experience is the issue that will decide who becomes president. Others say the war on terror and homeland security will be the deciding factor. Still others believe the economy will trump all other issues.

In another year, these would indeed be very important issues. But are they really the most important this year? I submit that they are not. Experience is really not as important as the media would have you think. America has shown many times in the past that they will vote for lesser experience if they like a candidate.

The argument can easily be made that Kennedy was not nearly as experienced as Nixon, but he won. The truth is that no one is truly prepared to be president, but those elected usually rise to the occasion. No one expected Truman to be a strong and capable president, but that was what he turned out to be. It is more important to be liked than experienced.

So how about the Iraq war and the overall "war on terror". I submit that this issue has already been decided by the public. The huge majority of the American people believe the Iraq war was a mistake, and the war on terror is being mishandled.

It took them a while, but most people now know it was a mistake to pull most of our troops out of Afghanistan before the job was finished, and invade Iraq (who posed no danger to us). They want to know why we attacked Saddam, when our real enemy was al-Queda. If this was really the most important issue, the Democrat would win with about 65% of the vote.

The same could be said for the economy. No matter how many times Bush says our economy is healthy, Americans know better. They also know the Bush presidency has been disastrous for everyone but the rich, and they know that all McCain has to offer is more of the failed Bush policies. Nearly 80% of Americans say America is on the wrong track economically. If the economy was really the most important issue, Democrats would win big.

And that's just what's happening in the House and Senate races. For months, huge majorities of the American people have preferred Democrats over Republicans (even though Congress itself gets low ratings). Democrats are poised to make huge gains in both houses of Congress.

The reason they are poised to do that is because the American people have already made up their minds about the economy and the war. They have already decided that the country cannot afford another four years of Republican policies.

So why is the presidential race so close? Since it is obvious that most Americans don't want the Republicans running things anymore, why are so many of them considering a vote for McCain? It is because there is one issue this year that far outweighs all the others in the presidential race.

That issue is RACISM. I know that some think we have gone beyond our racist past by nominating an Afro-American for president. But frankly, nothing has been proven yet. Obama was nominated by a coalition of blacks, liberals and young people -- the least racist elements in our society. It remains to be seen how the general population will vote.

Whether we want to admit it or not, there is still a LOT of racism in this country. Passing a few equal rights laws did not change the hearts of the populace. That is a harder and slower task. The question is has America changed enough yet? Or is the majority still racist enough to vote knowingly against their own interests, rather than vote for an Afro-American?

I can't help but think if a white male were heading the Democratic ticket, he'd probably be leading in the polls by 20%. (And don't bring Hillary into this argument. She lost, and there's no reason to think she'd do any better than Obama.) The only reason the race is currently so close is America's lingering racism.

If Obama loses, it will be because Americans are not yet mature enough to get past the race issue. I know most people won't admit it -- they'll come up with a variety of weak excuses to cover for it. But the truth is that with the overwhelming Democratic feeling in the country, the only thing that can defeat Obama is racism.

Don't get me wrong. I am an Obama supporter. I believe he is the best candidate by far, and I've waited most of my life to see a credible Afro-American candidate. I am very proud of the Democrats for nominating him, and I will vote for him proudly.

I just have this nagging feeling in the back of my brain that America has not progressed as far as we Democrats had hoped. I hope I'm wrong. November will be a test for America. Are we making progress, or is America still a very racist country? The coming election will clearly answer that question.

Obama / Clinton - The Experience Factor

The Hillary Clinton campaign has been bragging about how much more experience she has than her opponent, Barack Obama. They've repeated this so much that much of the mainstream media has bought into it. Time after time, we hear from them that Clinton could "hit the ground running" if elected, while Obama would have a learning curve to overcome before being effective.

They make it sound as if Obama was a first-grader on his first day at school who couldn't even find his way back from the bathroom, while Clinton was the know-it-all sixth grader ready for junior high. But just how true is the "Clinton is more experienced" argument?

The truth is that neither one has a single day of executive department experience. Neither has been a mayor or a governor. Clinton has been a First Lady, both in Arkansas and the White House -- but that's a long way from executive experience. Decorating the White House and throwing parties for dignitaries does not prepare you for leading the most powerful nation in the free world.

Now, both candidates do have legislative experience. Clinton has been a U. S. Senator from 2000 to 2008. Obama was a State Senator from 1997 to 2004, and a U.S. Senator from 2004 to 2008. I would call that a wash. Clinton has been in the U.S. Senate slightly longer, while Obama has been a legislator slightly longer.

How about their non-governmental experience? Clinton was a lawyer (and congressional legal counsel) and sat on the Board of Directors of Wal-Mart and several other corporations. Obama was a community organizer and civil-rights lawyer. Again sounds pretty much like a wash, although I personally like the experience working among common folk over the experience working with corporate heads.

Sounds to me like neither of the candidates has a real edge in experience. Both would require a small learning curve to reach maximum effectiveness. Clinton does have some built-in help there since her husband was the president, but there are plenty of good Democrats Obama could call on for help also.

So let's cut out this "Clinton could hit the ground running" nonsense. She's not any more experienced than Obama. What it really boils down to is who do you like the most? The only thing we can be sure of is that either one would be better than putting another Republican in the White House -- America simply can't afford that.