Romney's Business Experience...More Liability Than Asset

As the campaign heads down the final stretch we see Mitt Romney’s supporters reverting back to the cornerstone of his qualifications for the presidency…his business experience. 

Their claim is simple.  Romney’s extraordinary success in the business community makes him uniquely qualified to tackle the nation’s economic problems.

Their claim seems valid.  After all, when you are talking about budgets, debt and deficits; who better to take the wheel than a successful businessman with decades of experience in handling such matters.

The problem for Romney is that the United States of America is not a business.  And each time Romney has tried apply his business acumen to the nation’s problems his experience has proven to be more of a liability than an asset.

Take his economic plan.  Romney sees the top 1% of the country as the job creators…the engine that runs the country…our biggest asset.  He wants to maximize the power of this asset by reducing their taxes and stripping away regulations that impede their growth.  But in order offset that decrease in revenue he has to cut his expenses and reduce his liabilities.  He does this by cutting loopholes, programs and legacy costs that the other 99% of the country depends upon.  In the business world you can outsource, offshore, layoff or replace that 99% with advances in technology and automation.  You can downsize and consolidate your operations to eliminate many of them and reduce their impact on your bottom line.  But that doesn’t work in running a nation.  That 99% isn’t going anywhere.  You have to account for them as they matter just as much as the top 1%.  Romney has continually stumbled in accounting for the 99% in his economic policies.

Let’s look at his infamous “47%” comments.  Romney singles out the 47% of Americans who don’t pay taxes.  He says that they are not taxpayers and therefore not interested in his tax reducing proposals. He says:  “So my job is not to worry about them because I will never convince them that they need to take responsibility for their own lives.”  Let’s set aside that included in that 47% are elderly folks on social security, veterans and the working poor who don’t earn enough income to pay taxes.  In the business world Romney could get away with not worrying about them.  Again, he could outsource, offshore or simply lay them off.  But as president he has to include them in his policies and his economic plans.  Romney’s “off the cuff” comments show that he has trouble making that transition.

Finally, let’s look at the auto bailout.  Mitt Romney looked at the failing auto industry as he would any other prospective Bain investment.  He concluded that the industry needed to go through a managed bankruptcy, reorganize their management, restructure their operations and reduce their liabilities and expenses. If they came through the bankruptcy then Romney would be willing to provide government guarantees for financing so car buyers would not have to worry about the security of their warranties.  If they were unable to successfully re-organize and right themselves then their fate would be in the hands of the free market by whose hands they would live or die. Steve Rattner, the “car czar” who handled the bailout for both the Bush and Obama administrations, said that the industry could not have gotten through the bankruptcy procedure without an infusion of cash.  Unable to pay their bills; they would have to shut down and liquidate.  Rattner tried to find financing through the banking industry.  But the banking industry was in turmoil.  Lehman had just collapsed and other major banks were teetering on the brink.  None of them would touch the car industry with a ten foot pole…not even Romney’s Bain Capital.  Rattner says that Romney was well aware of this financing difficulty and still wanted to let the market take the industry down.  Rattner says that the president understood the importance of the auto industry to the American psyche.  He understood the devastating effect the industry’s collapse would have on the country.  And he fully understood the enormous effect the loss of 1.5 million auto jobs would have on the economy.  So the president stepped in when Mitt Romney would not.

Running a country is a great deal different than running a business.  It’s not just about debits and credits…profit and loss.  It’s about people and their lives. 

Serving as President of the United States requires a very different set of skills than serving as CEO of Bain Capital.

Governor Romney and his supporters have yet to grasp that concept.          

           

One more Comment On Last Night's Debate

One more comment on last night’s debate…

Lost in Romney’s sudden willingness to agree with the president’s policies on Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen and Libya were comments he made on the use of soft power in the Middle East and a convoluted approach to China.

Regarding the Middle East, Romney said that “we can’t kill our way out of this mess.”  He spoke of working with Middle Eastern countries on economic and social issues in order to soften their extremist views of the United States.  He talked about working to build schools and infrastructure. He talked about educating Middle Eastern women and advocating for their rights.  Suddenly moderate Mitt was advocating for the use of soft power, negotiation and compromise.  Neocon Mitt was left sitting at home.

We found this new line of thinking laughable.  Pull up the debate online.  Listen to Mitt the peacemaker make the case for education, infrastructure and women’s rights in the war torn Middle East.  Then pull up any of Mitt’s stump speeches here in the good old US of A.  Listen as he advocates cutting education and transportation, rejects equal pay, and pushes to overturn a woman’ right to choose.  The hypocrisy is palpable.

He did the same thing with China.  First he said that China is not a country to be feared.  They don’t want war, he said.  They want a growing economy and open avenues for trade throughout the globe. He said they are a partner that we can work with.  Then he turned around and raked them over  the coals for stealing our intellectual property, engaging in unfair trade practices and manipulating their currency.

The two faces of Mitt Romney.  Which one will we see tomorrow?         

   

Mitt's Magical Mystery Tour Continues

Ok, we’re just going to say this about Mitt Romney…

…never in the history of American politics has there been a candidate who has so blatantly and unabashedly reversed his position on core issues for the sole purpose of winning an election.  

Tonight we tuned in to witness the third and final presidential debate.  The subject matter was supposed to be foreign policy.  A debate on foreign policy generally requires that the two candidates explain and defend their divergent views on…foreign policy.  But Mitt Romney decided that tonight was the night that he would effectively disavow all the hawkish policy statements he had made in the past and adopt the president's positions on most foreign policy issues.  In fact if it were not for the back and forth on a few economic issues that wheedled their way into the conversation there would not have been a debate at all.

Romney’s performance was stunning.  The hawkish bluster was gone.  Romney used the word “peace” so many times we were waiting for him to break out a bong and a bag of hash. 

Romney reversed himself on so many key foreign policy issues that we don’t have the space to list them all here.  The reversal that most caught the attention of the press was Romney’s u-turn on the president’s policy for leaving Afghanistan in 2014.  Romney has consistently criticized the president for setting a time certain for the withdrawal.  Tonight he parroted the president’ s own words saying  that as president he would pull our troops out in 2014 because it is time for the Afghans to take responsibility for their own security.       

The Romney Campaign said that their debate strategy going in was to avoid any major gaffs and appear moderate, reasonable and presidential.  There was no mention of defending one’s positions or standing behind one’s core values.  We found this casual admission that the campaign intentionally threw the right wing neocons that handed Romney the nomination under the bus…unsettling.

The president was strong tonight.  He defended his record and his policies going forward.  He was very effective in drawing the contrast between Romney’s comments this evening versus the things Romney has been saying for months out on the stump.

 The president looked strong and steady.  But tonight was all about Romney.  Mitt Romney waffled again…some would say lied…and hoped the voters wouldn’t notice.

A CBS flash poll of likely voters said the president won tonight's debate by a 53%-23% margin.  A CNN poll gave the debate to the president by 20 points and a PPP poll by 8 points.  It was a very good night for the president.    

It used to be that a politician believed in something and spent the campaign trying to convince voters to buy into his position.  But the Romney campaign has completely altered that strategy in favor of a more “flexible” approach…say whatever it is you need to say to close the deal.

We miss having George W. Bush around.  At least with the Bush Doctrine you knew where the guy stood on the issues.            

Strong At Home = Strong Abroad

There are two new polls out that bear mentioning on the eve of tonight’s debate.

The first is the QUINNIPIAC poll that shows Obama leading Romney by 5 points in the state of Ohio.  That lead is down from 10 points two weeks ago.  This shows that the president is still ahead in what may prove to be the most important state in this election.  It also shows that Romney has made huge strides in the past two weeks.  The question is can the president hold him off.  The key here is turnout.  If the president’s ground game can re-invigorate student and Hispanic enthusiasm he will hold Ohio.  But if Romney’s surge continues over the final two weeks and he over takes the president in Ohio there is no reason to believe that he won’t do the same in the other swing states.  If Romney can pull past the president in Ohio we think he wins this election.  The key component contributing to Obama’s lead is the auto bailout.  In Ohio, one in 5 jobs is realted to the automobile industry.  The president saved the industry.  Romney wanted to let it go under.   

The other important poll is the NBCNEWS/WALL STREETJOURNAL/ MARIST poll that shows Romney and Obama tied nationally among likely voters at 47% of the vote.  The more interesting piece of this poll is that 62% of likely voters want the president to make BIG changes if re-elected.  They want to see changes in Washington and in the economic components that affect their daily lives.  They don’t want to talk about the past…and they don’t want four more years of the same.  As we have said before, the president has yet to lay out a clear, concise pronouncement of his vision for the future.  He has given us bits and pieces…100,000 more teachers, more manufacturing jobs, investment in alternative sources of energy…but he has yet to connect the dots with voters.  It’s tough for him to do that tonight with the focus on foreign policy.  But if this poll strikes the administration as it did us, we expect to see the president more clearly articulate his vision for the future over the final two week stretch of this campaign.

So what does any of this have to do with tonight’s debate on foreign policy?

In yesterday’s post we wrote about how about how there are those in politics who want to expand America’s role in the world even though our economic resources are insufficient to accommodate such expansion.  The fact is that you cannot have a strong foreign policy if it is not backed by a strong economy.  For example, Iran knows that the US is a war weary nation that is going through economic turmoil.  They know that the American people are more concerned about jobs than they are about Iran’s nuclear ambitions.  So they are using that perceived weakness at the nuclear bargaining table.  The president and our allies have imposed stringent economic sanctions on the Iranian regime.  Those sanctions are having a devastating effect on Iran’s economy.  According to an article in the New York Times, the weakened economic conditions in Iran have resulted in an apparent willingness on their part to discuss their nuclear ambitions.  The economic conditions in both countries are having a direct impact on their foreign policy.  You cannot be strong abroad if you are weakened at home.   

Foreign policy and economic policy…the two are irrevocably linked.  We will be watching tonight to see which candidate more clearly articulates the correlation between the two. 

     

 

Viewing Foreign Policy From 40,000 Feet

On Monday night President Obama and Governor Romney will meet in their third and final debate.  The subject is foreign policy.  With the polls showing an ever tightening race, this will be the last time these two men will have the opportunity to address 70 million Americans.

Unfortunately, this debate will probably begin with a heated discussion of the attack on our consulate in Benghazi and the murder of Ambassador Stevens and three other Americans.  The purpose of this cat fight will not be to better inform the public about a tragic event; but to throw raw meet at their respective political base.

Mitt Romney will say that the president bears responsibility for the death of four Americans because of his administration’s refusal to add additional security at the consulate.  He will say that the administration tried to cover up the fact that the breaching of the consulate on the anniversary of 9/11 was in fact an organized attack conducted by Al Qaeda or a similar terrorist organization.  And he will say that this attack is just further evidence of the erosion of the president’s weak foreign policy.

The president will no doubt counter with the fact that the administration put out the information they were receiving on the Benghazi attack in real time.  He will say that any inference of a cover-up is offensive.  And he will say that his doubling down on the number of troops in Afghanistan, his working with our allies to remove Kaddafi, his authorization of drone attacks which have decimated Al Qaeda leadership, his elimination of Bin Laden and the fact that thousands of Libyans took to the streets in condemnation of the Benghazi attack and in support of the US, are proof of a strong foreign policy that is working.

Hopefully this back and forth of political posturing will end after the first several minutes of the debate; after which the candidates will move on to a more substantive conversation of their world views.  Because foreign policy is a big picture topic that needs to be viewed from 40,000 feet; not micro-managed through the prism of gotcha politics. 

Columnist David Ignatius echoes our sentiments in his recent column in the Washington Post.

Ignatius cites an article by Michael Mazarr, a professor of strategy at the National War College. In the article titled: “The Risks of Ignoring Strategic Insolvency” which appears in the current issue of Washington Quarterly, Mazarr questions whether US military power needs to be “resized” to fit a changing world.  Mazarr contends that if the US fails to curb its international ambitions and tries to stretch its increasingly limited resources to cover all its traditional commitments it is destined to fail.  Mazarr doesn’t see the decline of American power but rather its overextension.

Ignatius quoting Mazarr: “The very definition of a grand strategy is holding ends and means in balance to promote the security and interests of the state.  Yet the postwar US approach to strategy is rapidly becoming insolvent and unsustainable.”  Mazarr points out several factors that are contributing to the insolvency of America’s traditional foreign strategy: US economic and budgetary difficulties; the emergence of new powers hostile to US interests; the ineffectiveness of traditional US military solutions (see Iraq and Afghanistan) and the growing resistance of the American people toward entering into another military conflict.

As Ignatius correctly states; “These are the strategic facts of life.  But every time a new crisis comes along the “correct” political response is: America should fix it.”

From our perspective the president seems to have a better handle on these changing dynamics than Governor Romney. 

The president understands the economic conditions here at home and consequently has called for a reduction in military spending.   When punitive action is required, the president has called for diplomacy, stringent sanctions and the patience to allow them to work.  When military force is deemed necessary he has increased the use of drones and Special Operations Forces and moved away from the traditional methods of heavy armor and boots on the ground.  And understanding the nation’s unwillingness to serve as the world’s policeman, he has built coalitions and called on our allies to share the burden.

Governor Romney has a different world view.  He believes that the only way to keep America secure is through tough talk and military force.  He believes that it is America’s destiny to be the world’s protector.  He has called for a massive increase in military spending in amounts exceeding (after adjustments for inflation) the treasure spent in WWII and the cold war.  His plan calls for enormous increases in battleships, destroyers, carriers and other traditional arms.   And he persists in these outdated armament requests even though the defense department has said publically that they do not want nor need them.

In additional to having an outdated view of America’s place in the world, the governor has been, shall we say, less than presidential in carrying out that message.  In fact, in the past several months he has had several opportunities to demonstrate his foreign policy bona fides and he has stumbled at every turn.  He turned what should have been a social visit to the British Prime Minister into an international incident when he managed to insult the London Olympic Organizing Committee.   When he responded to early reports of the Benghazi incident, his press conference was so ill-timed and short on facts that even his closest supporters cried out in embarrassment.  His highly promoted speech on foreign policy turned out to be little more than a recitation of strategic talking points that the president had already implemented.  And his clumsy efforts to catch the president in a lie at the last debate were fact checked by the moderator. To add insult to injury; members of his own staff do not believe he reads the foreign policy briefing papers they provide him.  Yet this is the man that almost half of the American people say they would trust with his finger on the nuclear button.

When it comes to America’s place in the world these candidates could not be any more different.  We hope that that this last debate will serve as a platform for a substantive discussion of those divergent views.

We share David Ignatius’ and Professor Mazarr’s views on the ever changing dynamics of America’s place on the world stage.  We thank David Ignatius for his reporting and Professor Mazarr’s for his insight.       

                   

  

We're Goin' With Nate!

If you have been following these elections you are no doubt as confused as we are about the latest polling data.

The latest Gallup Tracking Poll has Romney leading Obama by 8 points nationally among likely voters.  But the latest NBCNEWS/WALL STREET JOURNAL /MARIST Poll has Obama up by 6-8 points among likely voters in the key swing states of Iowa and Wisconsin.

What’s up with that?

We did some digging and here is what we found.

The volatility in the polls stems in part from the fact that early voting has already started in 38 states.  Those that have already voted when polled are not really likely voters…they are definite voters.  And there seems to be some variance in the way they are counted in the polls.

The president leads among early voters in both states.  In Iowa early voters said they voted for Obama over Romney 67%-32%.  In Wisconsin early voters chose Obama 64%-35%.  The experts think these numbers are accurate because Obama’s superior ground forces are really pushing voters to go to the polls early.  Nobody, not even the Romney people believe that Romney is up by 8 points over the president.

So what have we learned?

We have learned that this is a very close race and that the polls will shift between the candidates from now until Election Day.  Those who study the polls for a living tell us the key is to look at the polls as a whole and search for trends as opposed to focusing on one or two specific polls.  They also tell us that there is the very real possibility that Obama could win the Electoral College race but lose the popular vote.

RealClearPolitics is a nationally recognized polling organization that averages all the polls and looks for trends.  They say that if the vote were held today Obama would win with 281 electoral votes.

But our bet is on Nate silver.  Nate Silver is a statistician, sabermetrician, psychologist (We don’t what those words mean…but they sure do sound impressive.) and writer.  Silver first gained notoriety by developing a system for forecasting the career development of Major League baseball players which proved wildly accurate.  He gained national recognition in 2008 when he correctly predicted the outcome of the presidential election in 49 of 50 states.  (He got Indiana wrong…Obama won by 1 %.)  He also correctly predicted the winner of all 35 Senate races that year.

Silver says that Obama has a 66% chance of re-election…and that he will win 287 Electoral College votes to Romney’s 250.

Forget the polls!  We’re goin’ with Nate!!!    

Just Tell Us The Truth!

The campaign is almost over.  Only 19 days until Election Day.  There is still time…

…TO TELL US THE TRUTH!

It is really a sad state of affairs when the two men running for the most powerful position in the world cannot tell us the truth for fear of losing the election. 

Today the two candidates traded barbs about binders and Big Bird all the while knowing that there are some very tough conversations lying ahead.  But nobody wants to have that conversation until after the election.

Mitt Romney is a bright guy…a very successful businessman…a money guy.  He knows full well that his tax program doesn’t work unless you pay for it by eliminating deductions for mortgage interest, charitable deductions, state and local taxes and health care cost.  Even then you need to raise taxes on the middle class to make it “revenue neutral.”  He knows that we cannot afford to increase defense spending to the highest levels in our history.  He knows this!  But he won’t tell us the truth because it will kill him at the polls.

The president isn’t a dumb guy either.  He knows that the only way to reduce the deficit and the long term debt is to drastically reform Medicaid and Medicare.  And the only way to save Social Security for future generations is to raise the retirement age and freeze benefits.  He knows this!  But he won’t tell us the truth because it will kill him at the polls.

Candidates are often heard saying:  “The American people are smart.”  But then they treat us like we are stupid…like we cannot comprehend the “complexities” of: if you keep spending more than you earn you will find yourself in very deep doo.”  They act like we are mushrooms that need to be kept in the dark.

Any serious plan to cut the debt/deficit and grow the economy must include an increase in revenue in the short term and spending cuts in the long term.  It's math!  We get it! 

There are some very hard decisions that are going to have to be made very, very soon.  On January 1^st there are severe mandatory cuts in defense and a broad spectrum of government social programs that will automatically kick in unless someone orchestrates a compromise in Washington.  These cuts will be devastating to the middle class and working poor.  On that same day the Bush tax cuts will expire; raising taxes on millions of struggling American families.  Nobody wants to see any of these things occur.  But we cannot wish them away.  So somebody is going to have to grow some brass and tell the American people the cold hard facts. 

Barbs about binders and Big Bird may make for great headlines.  But they won’t solve the problems facing everyday families.  We need the truth.  We can handle the truth.  We’re not stupid!

(Well, except for the three people on the street asked by one of the late night shows  who they thought won the debate between Michelle Obama and Ann Romney!!!   The one guy said Michelle really connected with the audience.)