Is anyone in the media ever going to ask him, "How?" Mitt Romney repeatedly states, without explanation, that he knows how the economy works. Yet he is never challenged.
There is a raging misconception among his supporters that Romney's success in the private sector makes him eminently qualified to boost a lackluster American economy, create millions of jobs and balance the budget once he becomes president. However, absent from this reasoning were the glaring differences between being an executive in the private sector versus one in the public sector.
Take Michael Bloomberg for example, whose private sector fortune makes Mitt Romney look like a minimum wage worker. After 8 years in office, he was unable to save the New York City Off-Track Betting Corp. and the hundreds of jobs that went with it. In addition to having to close firehouses and downsizing the New York Police Department, New York City is still facing billion dollar deficits in the foreseeable future.
And therein lies the rub. As the CEO of Bain Capital, Mitt Romney was able to call all the shots. He could hire, fire, invest, divest, reopen and rebuild, or downsize and shutdown without opposition. At Bain Capital people had to answer to him. At the White House he has to answer to a legislature, federal courts and likely, a plethora of disapproving governors - not to mention an oppositon party that just might not see things his way. The Republican Romney continually campaigns on his ability to work with a Democrat majority when he was Governor of Massachusetts. But what happens when Massachusetts priorities conflict with those of Kansas , California, Mississippi or Ohio?
Throughout his Obama bashing campaign, Romney has failed to demonstrate a demeanor that can coalesce with almost certain obstruction from unlike-minded Democrats. His language suggests that he clearly believes being President of the United States is not unlike being CEO of Bain Capital. "I will fix... I will repeal... I will create..." and on and on. By the way, why would all those illegal immigrants "unable to find work" self-deport if Romney is going to create millions of jobs? At least Barack Obama was intelligent and humble enough, to say "Yes we can" - not "Yes I can!" What will Mitt Romney do when the we challenges his I? That is a situation he did not have to face while running Bain Capital.
What should really trouble American voters is his explanation for not running for a second term as Governor of Massachusetts. While his claim that he wanted to get out and get back into the private sector repeatedly goes unchallenged, he continues to have aspirations for and seeks the presidency. It seems clear that President of the United States is something that Mitt Romney simply wants to add to his resume. Were the best interests of his fellow Americans at issue, he would have remained in Massachusetts and made an effort for a second gubernatorial term. He didn't. He quit. He bailed on the people of Massachusetts who supported and voted for him. Outside of his family and his faith, what is there in his public history that indicates that when things don't go Mitt Romney's way that he won't bail again?
2 comments:
Right On Calvin!
I agree with you. Romney scares me. His supreme confidence (arrogance) I think belies an ignorance about the ways of Washington politics (a lesson Obama learned the hard way). We will see during later interviews how much he really knows about national and international issues. Yes, he really hasn't had to answer the hard questions yet. I'm not convinced either that he could beat Obama.
Again, nice post.
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