After two years of rigmarole on the campaign trail, a picture of the two U.S. presidential candidates is taking shape in my mind. In the spirit of dialogue, I’d love to know if it makes sense to you—and what you’re seeing that I’m not.
What I’m seeing, in Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, are two fundamentally good and decent men. Both have strengths that, in my mind, make them extraordinarily qualified to be president. Each also has a near-fatal flaw. To wit:
Barack Obama. Four years ago, the man walked into a nightmare: two questionably funded and disruptive wars, a perilously large federal deficit, an opposition in Congress that wanted him fired, and an economy on the brink. Today, the situation is more stable, though by no means on an upward trajectory. That’s not bad. My guess is that four years of experience in the presidency is excellent preparation for four more years, especially for someone with an agile mind like Obama. Moreover, he is exceptionally well educated, intellectually curious, visionary at times, possessed of a strong desire to collaborate across divides, and unafraid to incorporate ideas from anywhere.
But…almost from the beginning, he has shown a strange reluctance to lead. At the height of the Obamacare debate, I recall him making a policy speech to Congress that took a cross-section of good ideas on healthcare and integrated them into a coherent vision. He then seemed to leave all the details, the advocacy for his vision, and the hard work of compromise to Congress. Why? Similarly, I saw him trying to work with the obstreperous Republican opposition long after it made sense to do so. Presidents need vision, they need intellectual heft, but they also need the ability to take the bull by the horns to turn those visions and ideas into reality.
Mitt Romney.  Whatever else one might say about experience with “high finance,†it tends to confer the financial sophistication needed to grapple with things like deficits, economic issues, and debt. In addition to that, Romney’s resume shows a great deal of leadership experience, including the successful effort as a Republican governor to pass bold healthcare legislation in heavily Democratic Massachusetts. Many people who know him personally have attested to his compassion and generosity.
But…the development of his public image—particularly the lurches from moderate governor to strident conservative partisan and, in last Tuesday’s debate, back again—make it impossible for me to say who the real Mitt Romney is. In the first debate, I couldn’t shake the sense of a man who would say anything to get elected. Moreover, I don’t think the four weeks till the election is enough time for him to project his “real self†and have me trust that it is real.
The bigger lesson for me is something I repeatedly forget: candidates for office are human—with spectacular abilities and frustrating flaws. Somehow I keep hoping that, eventually, a candidate will come along who is more than human. What I’d rather learn (and I am learning) is to look those flaws in the face, imagine how they might affect the candidate as president, and decide which flaws I can live with.
OK, I’ve gone on long enough. Your turn. What do you think? Is this what you’re seeing in the two candidates? Are you seeing something I’ve missed completely? Do you have a different perspective entirely? Please share it here.
What I’ve not heard from anyone is comment on the part of Romney 47% video where he says, with what appears to be genuine candor, what he thinks of the [“moochers”] who think they have a right to food, shelter or medical care. Personally, I was appalled & found that to be the most revealing statement about Romney’s character. A true Oz moment.One might ask, what would Jesus say & do?
Having worked for a company in the 80’s bought & sold 5 times in 8 years by “vulture” capitalists I have serious issues with the morality of that type of capitalistic endeavor.
To digress, a real venture capitalist does just that, takes a promising company and invests cash to upgrade & improve.The vultures look for a company with a good cash position, funded pension, etc., uses leveraged buyout – thus loading a going company with a huge debt burden – charges enormous management fees & decamps.With luck, some businesses will survive, but the vulture’s goal is not to create something better; the goal is to create personal wealth.Goes to character.
I agree 100% with your assessment of Obama’s pros & cons. I am one of those who read both his books and came up with the same conclusions 4 years ago.I am one of the few who were not mesmerized by teleprompter oratory. My opinion was, and is, that he was “not ready for prime time.” Obama wasted a good part of the last 3 years clinging to the concept of “let’s join hands” for the good of the country, when it was clear from day one that a disciplined opposition was determined to destroy him.He seems to be getting the idea now that he needs to lead and advocate for his programs. Diffidence is not a good quality in a President I do think he will learn from 1st term [and debate] mistakes and make a real difference in this country’s future.
Interesting points, Anita. I’ve had a somewhat different experience with venture capital (having written for a local angel network), and perhaps that colors my thinking–but I can see a productive role for venture capital under the right conditions. No question that their job is to make money for the funders, but in the way the economy is structured, venture funding can provide a necessary bridge from “friends and family” funding to the IPO.
On Obama, I wonder (and I mention this in my book) whether we New Yorkers were a bit more prepared to cast a cold eye on candidate Obama. In the two years prior to his candidacy, we had elected a similar icon-type candidate as governor, then watched the sheen fall off as he resigned in disgrace. In the wake of Eliot Spitzer, it was a lot harder to get caught up in Obamamania.
I think I share your impressions of the two candidates. Although I am more likely to vote for Obama, I can respect Mitt Romney’s resume and experience. However, I am still unclear on *how* he is going to use that experience in the government. Like it or not, our Founders left us with a system where the President doesn’t get to lead like a CEO. Every president may come into the office with a set of specific legislative goals, but by definition the “checks and balance of powers” do not provide him or her with the tools that are available to business leaders. The priorities shift with every news cycle. That is treacherous territory to navigate and you need to be very agile in how you undertake to form alliances and respond to crises.
Obama did leave something to be desired when it came to the healthcare legislation – but I do remember the well-televised summit when he assembled all the leaders in the House and Senate and his cabinet for a very public discussion. I appreciate this as a voter and can’t recall any other time when so many people were allowed to watch what I thought was a meaningful discussion. What I learned by watching that summit is that the healthcare debate is much bigger than just one President, and in many ways, the American public was very unified in seeing the problem (uncontrolled healthcare costs) but very divided in how to solve it. While Obama earned no points for having a “grand vision” on that specific issue (which is not narrowly specific but actually a grand problem), I thought it was smart of him to engage many viewpoints. If that counts as “weakness” in a leader, and if it is shallow for the President to challenge the constituent forces in the Legislative body to form a compromise, then I would think a President may miss his most significant form of weapon in his leadership arsenal: the power to recruit others to do hammer out unpleasant details.
I hope that makes sense.
It makes all kinds of sense. Thank you for a really insightful comment.
The points in your first paragraph sparked another line of thought, and I’d love to hear what you think about it. Maybe the reality of our government’s checks and balances (which I do like) should influence the types of things we need to learn about a candidate. Many candidates are criticized for “not providing specifics,” and there’s merit in that criticism. But as you say, Susan, the system won’t allow the winning candidate to implement all her or his specifics anyway. So maybe we pay attention to candidate’s positions, partly to understand their beliefs, but far more as indicators of their depth of thought. If we go that direction, perhaps we get a president who may disagree with our personal opinion on tax policy BUT thinks well enough to navigate the crises that no one expects.
As an example, consider the financial meltdown of 2008. No one would have thought to ask Obama or McCain, “How would you handle a near-catastrophe in the world markets?” because no one saw it coming. What we could do, as voters, was assess their manner of thinking to determine who might be best equipped to cope with issues like that when they arose.
John, I think you very much pinpoint how I approach politics, and probably why I am an Obama supporter to this day, although I have respect for Romney’s business experience.
Considering the “checks and balances” that we have in govt, it is impossibly naive to expect a President can “lead” in the manner of a Jack Welch or a football coach. I recall from the 2008 election that most Democrats cheered Obama on when he talked about achieving healthcare reform in his first term. However, I recall very little discussion from “regular citizens” as to what they actually wanted in the healthcare reform bill except to ameliorate some of the current specific evils (the uninsurability of pre-existing conditions; life-time caps on benefits; and charging women more than men, for example). What I heard mainly was a very vocal contingent that wanted a universal (aka single payer) system. However, I realized that a single payer system was *not going to happen* in today’s political or economic environment. There were- and are – too many forces that would have stop that from becoming a reality. So, what’s a leader to do? I think, he/she needs to *listen* to citizens of all backgrounds, identify the specific issues, identify the range of possible solutions and then consider what is likely to be achieved given the political environment. Some part of this requires compromise from the leader, but it also requires some flexibility from the voting constituency and an understanding that “well, we didn’t get 100% of what we wanted, but is there room in this administration to keep moving the ball forward in an overall direction that I like?”
I believe Obama should get credit for achieving quite a bit of his promised campaign pledges. I also recognize that the manner in which he achieved them was not a model of “blazing leadership” but rather reflected the realities of our govt system. It also reflected a type of personal tenacity on his part that he did not give up on the healthcare bill (unlike Bill Clinton who quickly jettisoned all the work done by Hillary when her proposal was universally met with boos in the media).
So, while it *is* important to understand how a future leader thinks, I also believe it’s important to understand their personal tenacity and focus. I find this very lacking in Romney, whose campaign statements seem all over the map and at odds with who he was while Governor of Massachusetts. It’s difficult to appreciate his thought process when he seems to be willing to hide it from us.
Although I appreciate the thinking of your last paragraph, and agree with it to some extent, my only caution about hypothetical questions is that they are pretty vague. Maybe they should be, because that is what should prompt the train of thought. However, cagey politicians will take such hypotheticals and re-cast them to fit their needs, in other words they will insert presumed facts and “truths”. I’m still intrigued, though, by your idea there, and it certainly might be something we should utilize going forward.
Susan, I love your thinking on this. I hadn’t thought about this specifically in terms of tenacity and focus, but you’re right, those are critical qualities to measure in a candidate. I’m not sure to what extent I see that in the current president: there have been times when he has been laser-focused (the killing of Osama bin Laden) and times when he has spoken well about something but has not followed through as much as I’d like to see (energy and the Middle East come to mind).
Also, in my last paragraph, I don’t think I was referring specifically to hypothetical questions. In some ways, ALL questions in a campaign are hypothetical, because you just never know what’s waiting for the president on January 21 after the election. I’m more interested in hearing how they grapple with current questions, partly to hear the answers, more to hear the thought process behind them.