Do you remember the presidential campaign of 2008? The Obama team effectively used the metaphor of the automobile–American Economy’s car, being driven off the road and into the ditch. They blamed Bush and some pre Pelosi congress (when was that, by the way?) for the bloody incident whereby our beloved sedan (economy) ended up stuck. It was an effective picture and a compelling message.
While he blamed Bush for months into his own term, he also promised, in his own words to get the car out of the ditch. He said he could do it in one term and if he couldn’t do it, he wouldn’t deserve a second.
Here we are, three years later…and no clue about getting the car going.
He’s tried…Lord knows, he’s tried. He’s employed a host of tow truck Czars and wrecker drivers in Washington to brainstorm ideas, and suggest ways to get the car out. He’s spent hours criticizing the current congress for standing on the side of the road, watching, while he and he alone, tried to dig the car out.
By any metric, however, he not only failed to get the car out, but also succeeded in getting it stuck deeper and deeper. You know this experience first hand–when your car’s in mud, and you spin and spin and it only makes a bigger mess and your tires seem to inch further and further into the muck.
Unemployment is getting better, we’re told. Really? By most analysis, it would take at least eight years at the current rate, to get us back to pre Obama net job numbers.
Housing? The government’s policies have only delayed the inevitable and the huge bailout he proposes (to buy middle class votes by the way) will only hurt current retirees and soon to retire, who purchased 401K and other investments underneath the soon to be forgiven loans. You and I will pay for it.
The U.S. dollar is, by many accounts, in danger of becoming something other than the world’s currency, and while he tinkered and puttered about the car, his credit was downgraded for the first time in history.
We should not be surprised at these failed attempts to pull the car free. When you put someone whose best experience in getting cars unstuck, is going to community events in inner Chicago, to rally well-meaning social activists to “come together”, what you get is people all standing around talking about how terrible it is that the car is stuck, and looking for someone to blame.
Which brings us to campaign 2012. America, regardless of party affiliation, should be looking for a candidate who has done more than talk to his community. She should be interviewing candidates who have actual experience getting cars out of ditches, and back on the road—quickly. The urgency is that if our car gets too much further off the pavement, we’ll soon be driving a Namco—that best selling Greek manufactured vehicle we see all the time. What? You’ve never seen a Namco?
Mitt Romney has faced this challenge numerous times in his life. He’s repaired all types of vehicles–motorcycles to moving vans. As a venture capitalist and private equity turnaround expert, he’s gotten under the hood of dozens of mechanical wrecks and in 70% of the cases, got the cars up and running–carrying thousands of employees and stockholders forward.
He took that Massachusetts’s Citroen, which was in a 3B ditch of its own, and left it clean, upright, well oiled and with more than 2 billion in extra fuel.
He took the Salt Lake Olympics and almost overnight, lead a process that extracted it from its ditch, where it proceeded to set world records for speed and productivity.
If America ever needed someone with hands on experience pulling cars out of ditches, and putting them back on the road, now is that time.
