Back in 2008 the Election was framed at least for awhile as a choice between the "Inexperienced" Barack Obama and the "Experienced" John McCain. McCain's decades of public service was spun as a positive, instead of being a creature of Washington, McCain stressed the importance of knowing how to "get things done" in DC.
Meanwhile Obama's relatively fresh face and fresh ideas were spun by the McCain campaign as a negative. Obama was called "niave" and ultimately out of his league. Part of it started during the Democratic Primary race against Hilary Clinton in which it was argued that Barack Obama had no executive experience, and thus was not qualified to be President.
The fact that neither John McCain or Hilary Clinton personally had executive experience didn't seem to detour the subject at all. Then candidate Obama was held to a higher standard throughout the campaign.
At the time those of us on the left pointed to Barack Obama's role as the head of his national Presidential campaign as actual, real life executive experience. And I still think this is a legitimate argument for the campaign to have made.
Think about it. The Obama for America campaign managed millions of volunteers, hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue and expenses in all 50 states. Barack Obama basically ran a business in which he was the CEO, Salesman and product being sold. They made and aired ads, they managed the day to day finances, coordinated fleets of vehicles, scheduled daily events, put out press releases, responded to controversy and challenges, they even had their own TV station at one point.
A national political campaign is great way to earn some executive experience. It may not be enough on it's own to prepare you for the job of President of the United States, but it is a great way to show you have the ability to manage large groups of employees, people and finances. Especially if that campaign faces lots of hardships and unexpected challenges as Obama did. Managing people is a skill that is very important for a President to possess. Barack Obama proved with the execution of his campaign, that he was a capable executive.
Mitt Romney has not. Forgive the history lesson, I will try to stick to the highlights.
Mitt Romney's biggest supposed asset in this Election has been his executive experience. Yet we see a campaign in disarray. We see a campaign that has taken a dramatic hit in the polls. A campaign that given the economic fundamentals of the race, should be doing a lot better than it is. In short we see a campaign that started off bad, and has somehow gotten worse.
It started during the primaries when it became clear that the conservative base was looking to vote for anyone but Mitt Romney. Instead of addressing this immediately like a good Candidate/Campaign would, we saw the party pull itself apart. When he finally secured the nomination, it came at the expense of party unity. After the primaries we saw a constant appeal to the right wing base at a time when Romney should have been pivoting to the center. His campaign missed an opportunity to expand the playing field. This should have been a simple transition for the former Moderate Governor of Massachusetts. Instead we saw more pandering to the tea party base.
Suddenly the very predictable issue of Bain Capital hit center stage when the Obama campaign launched a series of effective and brutal ads on the subject. But this would certainly be no problem. Romney has been running for President pretty much non-stop since 2007 and his GOP opponents used similar attacks against him during the primaries. Certainly Romney's campaign had a canned response ready to go, that would put any concern about this issue to bed?
Wrong.
He basically said "I dunno, what my company was up too." which kind of put a damper on that whole executive experience argument. He then claimed that most of the layoffs and outsourcing happened when he was no longer in charge of Bain. This was not true. The Boston Globe almost immediately came up with federal documents showing Mitt Romney was the CEO and owner of Bain at the time of the layoffs and outsourcing was happening, which put Mitt Romney's credibility on the issue in the proverbial toilet.
A lot of people tend to forget that the Bain controversy kicked off the whole Tax Returns controversy. Mitt Romney's tax returns would clearly show where Mitt Romney was employed during the 1999-2002 era of Bain Capital. So naturally questions started coming up about Mitt Romney's tax returns. This was also pretty predictable so certainly it was something the Romney campaign could hit out of the park? Mitt's father set the standard for Tax Return disclosures. But more importantly this had been an issue in the past when Mitt ran for office. Certainly he had a good answer for this?
Wrong again.
He refused to talk about it. Refused to answer questions about it. Which ultimately made the issue linger far longer than it would have had he just released his returns. A smart campaign would have released highly redacted returns and moved on. Instead Romney kept it going, and even today the issue plagues him. The result is the perception that he has something horrible to hide. The secrecy has caused all sorts of wild speculation about what must be in those returns. Everything from his church tidings, to a 0% tax rate, to amnesty for illegal tax shelters have been offered up as reasons for his secrecy.
Mitt Romney then went overseas to London for the Olympics, as well as a few other places. This is the sort of move campaigns normally roll out to show just how naturally the candidate fits the role of President of the United States. Barack Obama did it masterfully in 2008. Certainly Mitt Romney, being fully aware how important it would be to show his diplomatic bona fides would go out of his way to carefully script every moment of this trip for maximum payoff?
Wrong.
We all know how this went. Mitt Romney returned to the States in worse shape than when he left, and the Tax Return issue was still dogging him. It should be noted that unscripted problems have also been a reoccurring theme in Mitt Romney's poorly managed campaign. Instead of staying focused on his message he goes off the cuff, and says something insulting or stupid to his audience. Be it the "trash bag" comments at the NASCAR event, or the "Corporations are People" line early on. The campaign is so badly managed they can't keep their candidate on a leash.
Imagine going to Best Buy and having the salesman say "This TV is great, it will be the nicest thing in your tiny, cheap looking, house." That is essentially what Mitt Romney has done for his campaign.
Next was the pick of Paul Ryan. The mistakes here were many. It was announced way too early to have a positive effect in concert with the the convention. The campaign also totally mismanaged the announcement with a leak the night before the big news was announced. The pick itself was yet another attempt to pander to the Right Wing base at a time when Romney desperately needed to pivot. And Ryan's budget with all of it's problems immediately (and to the apparent surprise of the Romney campaign) became the Romney/Ryan budget in the minds of voters and the media.
Next we had the conventions. It was supposed to be the turning point, the etch-a-sketch moment. Conventions are known for being perfectly crafted, highly scripted, incredibly staged infomercials for the candidate. The Convention itself requires so much preparation that it alone is a test of ones ability to lead as an executive. Romney's entire convention was a disaster. It was obvious by watching it, but behind the scenes there was even more going on. Scheduling issues. Several last minute rewrites of Romney's speech. A performance by "Eastwood and Chair."
In short the entire event was a debacle.
Fast forward slightly and you have the debacle in the middle east. Or should I say the debacle that was Mitt Romney's jumping the gun, and the shark, in regard to what happened in the middle east. Certainly Mitt Romney must have someone on his campaign staff who could have pulled Romney aside and said: "Ya know Governor, traditionally this isn't how campaigns go about responding to this sort of event. Maybe we should sleep on it, and take action tomorrow, or the next day after all the facts are in." Hell, maybe Mitt Romney does have someone like that on his campaign and they simply failed to convince him to hold back. Neither would surprise me.
Now we have this video of Mitt Romney speaking candidly with his donors about how much he dislikes half the country. I remember contacting the Youtube User who posted the video under Rachel Maddow's name about a month ago. He told me then that there was more video to come. Lots more. All much worse than the Chinese sweatshop stuff he had posted. Rachel Maddow pointed out on Monday that the video had been posted several times, by several users on Youtube as early as May of this year. Surprisingly nobody in the media was willing to comment on them because there was no confirmation that it was in fact Mitt Romney on the tape. It sounded like him, his body language matched, but in a surprising show of restraint, the media did the responsible thing and waited.
Today all of that changed. The source apparently proved the validity of the tape to Mother Jones. Romney for his part did not deny that it was him, which means his campaign knows all too well the contents of this video. Certainly they must remember the fundraiser they held at the house of the rich guy who loves orgies. So with the videos being online for all this time surely Mitt Romney already had the perfect response locked and loaded and ready to go as soon as the Mitt hit the fan, right?
Wrong again. You are really bad at this.
Again we see the biggest act of buffoonery up until this point in the election. SNL had a very funny opening skit this past Saturday about how Mitt Romney is Barack Obama's secret weapon. This turns out to be very very true. It's hard to see how we could have asked for a better opponent for President Obama to face off against.
And that brings me, finally, to the point of this diary.
Romney supporters have been grumbling lately about their candidates ineffectiveness, and are actually wondering out loud how someone with his experience, a leader of the financial management world could be so inept at campaigning? But this is Mitt's Executive Experience on full display.
Barack Obama's most important piece of personal experience before he ran for President was his time as a community organizer. It was that experience that prepared him for a national campaign. It prepared him for the task of organizing events and volunteers. It gave him the experience he needed to inspire people and get out the vote. In 2008 John McCain was fond of saying "Experience Counts" and it really does.
Mitt Romney's experience at Bain Capital consisted mainly of buying companies, spending all of their money, and running them into the ground.
That is exactly how he has run his campaign.