Mitt Romney, Meg Whitman and the Failed CEO Campaign

One of the creepiest early campaign moments was eBay CEO Meg Whitman dialing for dollars at Mitt Romney's fund-raising telethon last January, a farce created to showcase the Romney campaign's organizational skills and potential financial might (it raised $6.5 million). "You won't believe where I am! I'm at the Boston Convention Center with four or five hundred other people dialing for contributions for Mitt Romney," gushed Whitman.

Fast forward nearly exactly a year (and a similar fundraiser that yielded only $1.5 million), and Whitman, a Romney finance co-chair, is pleading for calm: "We still have a chance to win this thing." But, said Romney's national finance director, "if for some reason he is not the nominee, all those funds will be returned to the donor himself." Such confidence from some of American business's greatest minds (what eBay's shareholders and users think of the company's CEO being in bed so publicly, at least figuratively, with a notoriously homophobic politician of such dubious pedigree as Romney, is a matter for further discussion).

Not all billionaires are created equal, and Whitman hasn't claimed to be Oprah Winfrey, whose charisma and following probably gave a nice lift to the Obama campaign when it needed it most. But what Whitman, Romney and their Fortune 500 crowd did imply is that their success at Bain, eBay, et al, would translate into a winning campaign. This has not happened. At all.

If the past 12 months are any indication, it's hard to see how all of Romney's clients at Bain haven't asked for their money back. And it's not only because business skills don't necessarily translate to politics: by any standard the marketing and financial management of the campaign have been disastrous. I'll grant them that the product (i.e. Romney himself) is not a compelling one: a charmless, Mormon governor of the most liberal state in the nation doesn't spell success in a Republican primary. But they must have known that going in, no?

In any event, the marketing has been inept: the candidate was badly positioned as a social conservative to begin with (did they really think no one would dredge up Romney's radically different positions from just a few years ago?), the branding was inconsistent, and there was no emotional message whatsoever. And now Romney has been powerfully tarred, in a stroke of Mike Huckabee genius, with looking "like the guy who laid you off." That's because he IS the guy who lays you off: that's what consulting firms like Bain do. This is not a good thing in Michigan, the next GOP primary, more affected perhaps than any other state by "restructuring."

Finance, too, has not been stellar, as evidenced by the fundraising that has lagged well behind leading Democrats' and even Ron Paul's. Without Romney's substantial infusion of his own fortune, the campaign would have been broke a long time ago. As it happens, though, it is broke now, at the worst possible time. Pulling ads that were ready to go in two of the next three states so that the campaign can "focus" (ie spend the money) on a state, Michigan, of which Romney's father was a popular governor, is not a sign that things are going well. And why was there no real contingency for back-to-back losses in Iowa and New Hampshire, where Romney was leading by double digits until a few weeks before they voted?

None of this is a complete surprise: the presidential, and even congressional, landscape is not replete with successful business people turned successful politicians. Campaigning itself is basically anathema to most CEOs, for whom showing up at the annual shareholders' meeting is distasteful. And while running a large company and running a government require some of the same skills, there are more differences than similarities. There is nothing inherently special, magical or appealing about career politicians, but campaigning, gaining political power and holding on to it IS their full-time job, and many of them are rather good at it (whether that's good for us the governed is a different matter).

George W. Bush, our first MBA President, is not a good example of the lack of translatable expertise from the private to the public sector. He was a complete failure in business, succeeding only at extorting money from Bush family cronies, local governments and gullible fools. In his case, the stain isn't so much on MBAs in government, as it is on Harvard Business School, who awarded Bush his degree to begin with.

And now Michael Bloomberg, the multi-billionaire mayor of New York, is back on as a presidential possibility, it seems, we think. Do we care? Not really. Despite being a dilettante (in the words of one lobbyist still upset at his two mayoral victories), he's been a reasonably good manager of New York, especially after eight years of the strident, corrupt, racist reign of Rudy Giuliani. But what could possibly be the appeal nationally? The Democrats will come up with a good candidate either way (unlike the New York City party for the past three elections), so this is not the year that will see many Democratic voters run to an independent candidate (unless the Clintons goes ballistic on Obama), even if Bloomberg spends $1 billion on a campaign. And if there weren't enough Republicans willing to jump ship to elect (or even give one state to) an independent, short, nasally billionaire in 1992 (Ross Perot), there won't be in 2008, even if Huckabee is the GOP candidate.

And surely there will come a point when even the most entitled, self-involved, courtesan-surrounded multi-billionaire will realize that the odds of succeeding are so low that it is not worth the humiliation of a whooping by a mere multi-millionaire professional politician.

Follow Paul Jenkins on Twitter: www.twitter.com/PaulcJenkins

Comments

[TheWesternBreed]

There's another old proverb: "You can always tell a Harvard man, but you can't tell him much." Our arrogant, incurious CEO president is a sterling example, in a negative way.

[rabun666]

Bush campaigned as the CEO pResident and look what we have. perhaps even Republican voters can see the disaster they have foisted on the country and just don't want another CEO president. Their is a proverb "never hire a Harvard MBA", A word to the wise again.

[Crowhaul]

I LOL'd for real when I realized the Nutt Romney thought that his 'business savvy' would be something of value to voters.

As a business owner, the last person I will vote for is a business owner. Go back to counting your pennies, Nutt.

[MsLiz]

I loved this article, particlularly citing Huckabee's comments that Romney is the guy who lays us off and that Harvard should be ashamed of awarding Bush an MBA.

[mommadona]

So, he gets to write off the expenses on his taxes, correct?

Damn, he's slick.

[whimsicalpig]

to use an old phrase, could it be that the rich have killed the goose that layed their golden agg.

I seems that they went to the pot one too many times, they have pushed the middle class just one tad farther than they planned.

They just wanted us to give and give until it almost hurt and we wouldn't feel anything what with our ears to our cel phones, our behinds in our SUV's and our heads up our own posteriors,

They see no reason for a middle class other than to consume, and now that China and India are providing a rising middle class, they feel they can outsource their consumers also.

perhaps middleclass Americans have begun to realize that they serve no usefull purpose in the greater world economic scheme.

big business thinks we have become too expensive to maintain, what with our need for excessive healthcare, great amounts of high-quality food, wastefull and poluting transportation requirements,

WE HAVE BEEN DEEMED,ECONOMICALLY EXPENDABLE.

Hence the last 28 years of assult on our way of life.

I am only so slightly exited to think that americans are just beginning to see the "job" that big business has done to them since Ronald Reagan took office.

Hopefully we will throw the bumbs out of all offices that deal with our great nation and take back this country for its real citizens

[jettexx2000]

the other item you left about romney is, what about his goon squad, you know the wannabee state trooper, that tried unsuccessfully to get a ny times jounalist to veer off..this guy worked for romney for a long time, and was only fired because his antics became too public..this is just another reason romney represents more unwelcomed fascism, not needed change!

[glitzqueen]

Everyone I know is sick of the Pig People and the gluttonous class war they've waged on the rest of us for 30 years, quite deliberately reversing all gains made by the middle class and regaining a larger share of wealth than they've held since the 1920s.

They're set to enjoy luxurious retirements, while we try to pick up the pieces. For gawds' sake, let's retire them!

Please, People, SEE IT. Vote Edwards.

[Zenobius]

Look, the business elite in the US {not just Mitt Romney, bet also Meg Whitman, think they are a legitimate "Establishment", and that the rest of society should follow them. This leads them to overestimate their appeal to the rest of us { including the Republican cultural conservatives, for whom the alliance with business Republicans is one of convenience only}. This will continue until someone like FDR comes along, and by calling them "malefactors of great wealth", uses language strong enough to blast through their illusions. Of course, they will hate the man {or woman} who makes them face this reality.

Sic transit Romney

[cindysundancer]

Bill Moyers had a very telling segment on Romney last week. There is a "consultant" in South Carolina who slimed McCain in the 2000 Republican primary race by having his team conduct "polls" asking South Carolina voters how they felt about McCain's "black baby." Guess who hired this "consultant"? George Bush. Now guess who has hired the same guy in 2008 for HIS South Carolina primary campaign?
Mitt Romney. Two pampered rich boys riding family coat-tails. Both very pro-war-but not for their own kids--and Romney with FIVE sons!
BTW, I understand McCain's "black baby" was an orphan from Bangladesh that they met through Mother Teresa and decided to help. Bush's people implied it was an out-of-wedlock
child.

[TheWesternBreed]

And not only that, but EBAY stock has tanked since mid-October and is now in sight of its last 52-week low. Meg Whitman had better get back on THAT job.

[Dandy12]

Romney has very little in common with voters.
He praises Bush and the status quo, is super rich, seems to think the economy and the war are all well and fine, and seems like a flip-flopping blowhard!
Enough of a reason???

[not one of the sheep]

Let me see if I get the gist of your blog, you hate Romney. Oh, I think I overlooked your other point, you hate Romney, Bush and any Republican. Same old blah, blah, blah, hate, hate, hate.