"Paradoxically, the bar was high for Mitt Romney's speech to the Republican convention not because much was expected of him but because it was not.
In six years of campaigning for the presidency, he has managed to leave such a hazy and sour impression in the minds of the mass of American voters that he is barely regarded as a human being. In the days and hours leading up to Romney's big moment, delegate after delegate at the convention told me, with a glint of panicked hope in their eyes, that in Romney's speech he would finally have a chance to introduce himself -- to seem real, to be understood." The Atlantic
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I didn't watch any of the convention and will not watch the infomercial in NC either. In my distant youth, national political conventions were fun. The issues were settled in lovely smoke filled rooms. Demonstrations marched about the hall and journalists of high reputation presided over black and white images that they clearly did not take seriously. Now..... Sigh.... The commercializtion of America is nearly complete, as is the momification, the political cleansing, etc. As part of that, the idea has taken hold that politics is merely a sub-division of marketing. People prattle of "market shares," "media markets," TV "buys," and above all "branding," as though we are engaged in buying f-----g toothpaste. The old guys on Mt. Rushmore would not be pleased.
Included in this mess is the notion, seemingly accepted by all that the president is the "commander in chief" of the United States. He is not. He is commander in chief of the armed forces. He has no more right outside civilian law to command civilians than does Alfred E. Newman. (Look it up)
An even more egregious folly is the notion that the president of the US is CEO of the USA. The United States of America is nothing like a business corporation. I have been in government as a civilian and I have been in business as a corporate officer of a large international company and I assure you that business and government are not alike at the top in the USA.
The CEO of a large corporation has freedom of action within the guidance of the board of directors of the company. He/she is hired to make money for the company. Other than going to jail, the only thing the board of directors is concerned with is the bottom line on the balance sheet that represents the only reason for the company's existence. This is MONEY. How much money (profit) did we make this year and how much are we likely to make next year? Those are the only really important questions for a business. General Motors does not exist to make vehicles. It exists to make PROFITS. If that does not occur then the board and/or the stockholders get a new CEO. Until that happens the CEO has a free hand to make money for the owners doing pretty much what he/she wants to do.
The president of the US exists within a very different system. He does not have a free hand, except perhaps within the bounds of certain foreign policy and war making features that originated in the Cold War. The constitution of the US created a system designed to limit power, not to enable it. The assumption was that the power of those who have the money and guns is unlimited unless it is restrained by law. In the president's world, the board (Congress) sits every day properly watching to insure that the non-CEO president does not exceed the standing and ever changing authorizations of power and money that the Congress grants or has granted. In BHO's case the Republicans in Congress began to limit his freedom of action within weeks of the inaugural. They have never ceased to do so and will continue if he is re-elected. In Romney's case, his cretin business friends seem to believe, as does he, that he would arrive in Washington with the discretionary power of a corporate CEO. He would not. Unless the Republicans win the presidency and control of both houses of Congress, Romney will be in the same position that BHO has been in for four years. "Payback is a bitch." What do they think Romney is going to do, stage a coup against the Congress?
Government does not have a "bottom line" in the business sense. The US Government is not like a third world government. Individuals can measure how much they made from government contracts, but the government itself is a "cost center" (business speak) not a "profit center." It is a non-profit entity that provides services without earning money to pay for them other than fees at parks and similar trivialities. It gets its money by a levee on the consumers of the services. It also borrows money and has the ability, along wth banks, to create money by simply putting the right numbers on paper.
In this set up, how would Romney and the Republicans measure their "success?" Would it be by any growth that occurred in GDP? Would it be by reduction in expenditure for social services? Great! Let's see them do it! pl
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/08/mitt-romney-capitalist-saint/261823/
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