The CEO President
Does being a CEO of an organization mean you are better qualified to be President of the United States?
While I was studying for a masters degree in Political Communications, this was the most interesting question that I came across. It is a question I asked myself when I was studying George W Bush’s candidacy in 2000 and it is a question I have been asking myself as I have watched Mitt Romney’s campaign.
As impressive as Mitt Romney’s accomplishments are in the private sector, I keep asking myself the central question I asked during my studies, why would that make you a better president?
Why would Mitt Romney’s business experience make him a better president than a former Senator or congressperson? They are more in-tune with the way Washington government works. Why is business experience better than the experience of a governor (I am aware he was governor of Massachusetts, but he running so far away from his governorship that I am going to ignore it for now)? What about a former Presidential/Congressional aide? An actor, maybe?
It’s a question that some have tried to provide answers to, but I find them unsatisfactory. The strongest argument for why a CEO of a private sector company should be president is funnily enough Romney’s central argument, he knows how to create jobs. Not only that, but, a CEO knows how to manage a large working force along with their needs such as benefits and healthcare. Most importantly, a CEO knows what sort of environment businesses need across the country to be successful.
Fine. I understand that. But again, does that better prepare you to be President?
The problem with claiming that you are a proven job creator is that the media and the voters are going to expect proof, and as Mitt Romney is beginning to find out, sometimes this is hard to provide. He is already having difficulty making the ’120,000 jobs created while he was CEO of Bains’ assertion stick (http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/16/debate-fact-check-romneys-120000-jobs/).
The problem with citing you management of a large workforce as testament to being able to managing a population is, well, the American people are not employees. As a CEO, your first priority is the bottom line, which is totally understandable. As President your first priority must be the American people. Coldly downsizing (or privatizing) American services can be devastating to the people you are aiming to protect.
Example — One public figure I will always admire is former British Prime Minister Margret Thatcher. She sought to keep taxes as low as she could and had a fearsome foreign policy. But it is her policy of privatization I have the most issue with. Although her policy resulted in a bigger market share for many of the privatized companies (BT is a market leader in the UK), they also devastated whole communities. Large steel towns and cities in the North of England and large parts of Wales are still looking to recover from the loss of manufacturing jobs, jobs which disappeared thanks to the privatization policies of Thatcher. There was no policy to re-educate workers or prepare communities for the outcome of factories or mines closing down.
As the New York Times point out, Romney only cites his successes during his time at Bain Capital, he does not include the amount of jobs losses total during his time at the company. I watched Newt Gingrich’s documentary, “When Mitt came to town” – it is an absolutely devastating piece of work that will only be refined when President Obama gets his hands on the material. If Mitt asks the American people to keep in mind his debatable job creation record, shouldn’t people also consider his record of downsizing and asset stripping companies and what effect that might have on the country and its communities?
Claiming that a CEO knows the type of environment a business needs to be successful is fine, but the environment Mr Romney and the Republicans describe is the very environment that fostered the economic disaster of 2008, repercussions that the world (mostly Europe) is still trying to recover from. For example, what is wrong with President Obama wanting to regulate the same banks that needed tax payer funds to survive in 2008? Is that big government, or rational government? This brings about the question that if a President is ONLY considerate of an environment good for business, does he forget about the taxpayer?
The above is just a long winded way of me saying, the American government is far too large and its goals are far too complicated for people to compare it to a private enterprise. The pursuit of profit is a fine goal for a business but this might mean shedding a lot of jobs, this is unacceptable in government.
I think President Clinton said it best in the 2008 elections when many thought he was having a jab at then candidate Obama, “no one is ever ready to be President [...] Even if you’ve been Vice-President for 8-years, no one can ever be fully ready for the pressures of the office” (http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerIndex?id=5508611).
8 Responses to “The CEO President”
In fact, it’s ideal for the nation’s (the government in Washington’s) chief executive officer. (no literal pun here — it’s real)
Running the government in Washington and governments everywhere else more like well-run businesses (irrelevent what you think of Bain) is long overdue for them fiscally.
(Well-run! No short-term mentality applied to constant re-elections)
What people in the United States do not understand today is the constitutional powers given the president. Presidents have exceeded these powers through powers given up by congress over the years that have allowed them to control through regulation, but that still restricts the presidents abilities. As by design, the President is not a king and therefore can not do much by himself.
But looking at the answers all the candidates give in debates indicates they will do everything they say they will do and not have to work with anyone to accomplish those goals. Looking at the questions asked by the media and viewers of the debates indicates they expect the president to be a king and do everything they say they will do.
This is never going to happen because there are 535 other congressional members where a majority of those will have to agree to the goals set by the President. This is why the senate and house elections are so important. Thay are the ones setting domestic goals through the bills they pass.
Where people go off half cocked is understanding the role the CEO plays in the their company. Many believe a CEO of a large company is the one that keeps the workforce happy, provides for new products to keep customers happy and is completely responsible for the profit or loss on the finanicial operations of the business. Not true. The most effective CEO’s surround themselves with excellent managers and if the CEO leaves, the company can survive without them. The CEO works with these people as a team and they accomplish goals as a team.
Look at Washington and compare to an effective CEO that has managed a Forbes 500 company. I doubt you will find this same team work playing out with the managers we have in elected government.
While some of the qualities of a good CEO could be transferable to the presidency — strong leadership, charisma, decisiveness, the ability to learn and weigh options — the goals of one vs the other are not and should not be the same. As I said in another thread, there should be a natural tension between government and the market. Where we’ve gone off the tracks is where we’ve allowed the two most powerful entities — big government and big money — to play on the same team against the worker, the consumer, the family, and the social safety net.
As roro said, while being a CEO and being a President are not the same thing, there are some common characteristics that contribute to a strong CEO and President. When Romney argues that his executive business experience would help him as a president, I don’t think he means because he knows how to manage employees and therefore will know how to manage citizens. So, I think these arguments (including the similar one from Paul Krugman a few days ago) are a bit of a straw man.
And it’s still true that he was a governor, so it’s not like this is all new to him and he’s expecting it to be exactly like being a CEO. One of the reasons Cain’s candidacy was a joke, as far as I’m concerned, was that he had zero experience outside of business. It’s true that Romney is not emphasizing his government experience, partly because that doesn’t play well with the Republican base and partly because it’s not a distinguishing characteristic between him and his opponents. But, the fact still remains that he was a governor, whether he plays that up or not.
I rarely comment on my own pieces but @ adelinesdad, I take your point totally.
That is all.
Republicans and many business leaders like to make comments praising themselves and colleagues for their “leadership” when down sizing companies, and brilliance when they grow.
Apparently the creation of new business, which is far more difficult, falls chiefly under the purview of the rest of us. For that is where the greatest risk and the play of trial and error occurs the most. Also the most failure, but that is because we are so short sighted in the eyes of our betters, whom if we are lucky, might stoop down to buy one of our struggling creations, invest the money they would never loan us, put their name on it, and add it to their own laurels.
You might think that a brilliant Capitalist whom can manage the complexities of a billion dollar corporation or two, could at least in their spare time, create a few mere million dollar businesses for the sake of job creation. No, they just wait for us slackers, pretending impatience with our dull response to their majesty. Sounds like politics.
I stayed “quiet” earlier about governor experience in Romney’s experience (and with someone else’s — read on), but let’s not only understand that somneone running a business has value as a President, but that given government is a bureaucracy, not a business (different than the private sector), Romney’s best appeal ordinarily should be that he is a former governor.
The three occupations from which to “ascend” to the Presidency are that of governor, U.S. Senator, and Vice President (the obvious grooming job for the Presidency, a position that ought to be run much more strongly or vigorously than it often is). Among these, being governor is most applicable to the federal executive branch.
Romney’s problem is that his best-known legacy from his governorship is Romneycare, which is seen as a gross liability, not an asset, to his legacy and to his campaign now.
(A good way to view, for better or worse, former governors in the Presidency is to view them as trying to run things as they ran things while governor in their states. This seems easy to do since presidents in modern times haven’t really been better known positively for their time as U.S. President.)
The additional thing is the taint not from former governor Bill Clinton, but rather from former governor George W. Bush. The huge “ignorance bloc” of Democratic voters and a good deal many others should be quite well swayed by labeling Romney as “another Republican governor.” In the case of Rick Perry, of course, there’s even the probably nastier label for him of being “another Texas governor.” (“Do we really want another?”)
LOL BJ
The Fox Party is less informed on issues and found to be the huge “ignorance bloc”.
This party of brillance also believes in creationism, intelligent design and a 6000 year old earth. Now who are you calling ignorant?
http://www.turnoffyourtv.com/networks/foxnews/foxnews.html
http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/international_security_bt/102.php