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).
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