The Fine Thread of Conscience and the Election of 2012

Two possible futures stand before us, but probably not the way you think. John McCain’s victory in November is a virtual certainty. This is not because of the closing crisis among the Democrats over the distribution of delegates, superdelegates, and superduperdelegates (no joke—there is a subsidiary category of superdelegates that can appoint additional crews of superdelegates, the epitome of elitism). The crisis may have helped Republican interests by a fractional margin, but it was not necessary. By November 4, it will seem as though there never had been a crisis. Nor will it make any difference to Democrat interests to include the word “Clinton” on Obama-for-President bumper stickers.

On November 4, voters will choose between two major-party candidates and a sprinkling of third-party options. Both Obama and McCain will fall short of 50% of the popular vote, but McCain will garner a clear majority of electoral votes and win the election. My current, rough estimate of the share of the popular vote is 47% for McCain to 45% for Obama, based on data from the first quarter of the current year. (Liberals may nevertheless rejoice at the higher, 5.5% unemployment figure released yesterday, as that will help thin McCain’s margin of victory.)

John McCain will win in both possible futures. What is the difference then? It has nothing to do with Democrat chances in 2008. There are none. Instead, it is entirely a question of how McCain will prepare to manage economic policy. Yes, we know that McCain once described himself as something less than an economic journeyman, but that is irrelevant. In fact, Obama and Clinton alike fall short of McCain’s knowledge of the economy, but they naturally would never admit it. The Democrats’ punish-the-rich predilections make them economic dunces by comparison. Still, it does not matter. Managing economic policy through 2012 will be no easy feat. That year is unusual.

The first possible future is this: John McCain will win the presidency, serve four years, and then inaugurate a dozen years of Democrat Party control of the White House. This is the more likely path that our country will take, given the sheer complexity of how to manage the economy over the next four years. McCain could hire a Ph.D. in economics to run the Department of Labor or Commerce, but even so, it would not be enough to secure success on this front during this period.

The second possible future is this: John McCain will win the presidency, serve four years, and then inaugurate a dozen years of Republican control of the White House. This scenario is far less likely than the first. In fact, given the special circumstances governing the economy over the next four years, such an outcome will be virtually unprecedented in American history. That is how difficult the feat is.

Part of me hopes that the Democrats defy the odds and take the White House this year. Dr. Ray Fair of Yale University has a popular equation of presidential prospects, which currently predicts precisely this. Dr. Fair will update his data as the economic numbers progress through the coming months, and I expect that we will see McCain’s prospects gradually improve during that time in his equation. Until then, let me most humbly and (almost) regretfully submit that his result is incorrect for the moment. (Dr. Fair uses some speculative projections, which my model does not require.) Mind you, I do not welcome a Democrat victory. Democrats will raise taxes, enlarge the Nanny-State, and pursue international policy that only threatens our country’s security. Yes, there would be a distinct advantage in a Democrat victory in November, in that it would guarantee a dozen years of Republican control to follow. But how much should we be willing to pay to avoid an extended period of Democrat governance? Conversely, a Republican victory in November will all but guarantee the opposite, that the period from 2013 to 2025 will be a replay of the Clinton years, only 50% longer.

What is the price of true conservatism? Must we endure another episode of the Carter years in order to restore Reaganesque conservative leadership to the Republican platform? (Spookily, both Iran and high oil prices are in play once again.) Is it enough for us that our man McCain will drive the ship for four years? Are we satisfied that McCain’s Teddy Roosevelt progressivism (a liberal ideology, not a conservative one) is okay for now?

We must start addressing the challenge of 2012 today. If we wait to see what McCain will do on his own, we will hand 2012 to the Democrats, for better or for worse (well actually, for worse).

Some of you may believe that having a Republican in the White House increases the odds of victory in an election, given the advantages of incumbency. In fact, it is generally the opposite. Incumbency does not help in presidential elections. If the economy stays strong and there are no scandals, then yes, a Republican White House will stay Republican. Otherwise, it will turn Democrat. In fact, having a Republican in the White House for the coming four years will (all but) ensure the demise of the Republican Party for the next dozen years. The reason for this is the year 2012 itself.

We live in an age of very predictable economic growth cycles. That is, a cyclical contraction is predictable every 42 quarters (10.5 years). External shocks to the economy can also occur to add more points of negative growth during a growth cycle, as happened dramatically in the mid-1970s due to the OPEC oil embargo, but even with such shocks, the economy repeatedly hits a point of major weakness every 42 quarters, and predictably heads downward sharply before it recovers. The last time this occurred was in 2001. No, the attack on the World Trade Center did not cause that contraction (it was not technically a recession; the negative-growth quarters were not adjacent to one another). Neither did Bill Clinton (sorry). It was natural and predictable.

This pattern of natural contraction points is readily visible in real-GDP historical data. Quarterly data since 1947 are available (http://www.bea.gov). Those data show that the 1949 recession (1st quarter) was on time. The 1959 contraction (3rd quarter) was also on time, but an early recession (4th quarter 1957) softened the cyclical contraction that followed, so it only lasted one quarter. (When an early contraction occurs, it softens any cyclical contraction that closely follows, if there is one.) The 1970, 1980, and 1991 recessions (1st, 3rd, and 1st quarters, respectively) each occurred one quarter early. The 2001 contraction (3rd quarter) was exactly on time, but two prior contractions softened it, resulting in only one quarter of negative growth at that particular point.

These contraction points have followed a regular cycle since about 1873, prior to which they are displaced by about four years, probably due to the Reconstruction era that followed the US Civil War. Reliable quarterly data are not available prior to 1947, but annual data support precisely the same pattern. Thus, 1938 was on time, 1928 (prior to the Great Depression) was evidently mild due to the 1927 slowdown, 1917 was on time, and a somewhat early recession in 1904 softened the impact on 1906. Going further back, 1896 was on time, 1885 was on time (although 1884 was also a recession year), and 1875 was on time.

Now, why am I proposing that it will be so difficult to manage the economy through 2012? Why should anyone believe that the next four years will be any more difficult to manage than the last four? And how does this affect the presidency? For this last question, review Dr. Fair’s website. His explanation of the impact of economic news on presidential elections will suffice. Just know that the president gets the credit or the blame for the economy, deserved or not. For the question of why it will be so difficult, consider the natural growth cycles and contraction points. The next contraction point is in the first quarter of 2012. Our current growth rate has slowed, but it will soon accelerate for one last gasp, fooling everyone into believing that only an unrelenting path of prosperity lies ahead. Instead, we may be able to expect a downturn in 2012 of perhaps the same magnitude as in 1991. Worse, it will hit us no later than the first quarter of that election year. Whom will Americans blame? We have yet to see a political party maintain the White House through that condition. FDR did not face this challenge, because the cyclical contraction points did not coincide with election years (and the war got in the way after that). The same is true of Eisenhower (1956), Nixon (1972), Reagan (1984), and Bush (2004). By comparison, several presidencies have changed parties due to this phenomenon alone, causing Republican losses in 1960 and 1992, and a landslide Republican victory in 1980. Gore’s exception in 2000 was a consequence of the Clinton scandals, and that outcome shows that Watergate-styled scandals can cause a change in party despite a calm economy. In two cases (Truman in 1952 and Johnson in 1968), the natural incumbent dropped out of the race for reasons of party disloyalty or factioning, and this contributed to the party’s loss of the White House despite stable economic conditions. The year 2012 puts the election years back in alignment with cyclical contractions. No one can survive the effect of 2012.

Except possibly one person. And only one. Mitt Romney would stand a chance. To be sure, it would be the most difficult turnaround feat that he had ever attempted, but if anyone can do the impossible, it is precisely the man who has done the impossible before. I need not re-explain the miracle of the 2002 Winter Olympics. But saving Bain and Company was just as great. Bain and Company is no ordinary business. Business geniuses run Bain and Company, and the firm hires only more geniuses. Bain and Company’s business is to apply its ingenuity to fixing the world’s most complex corporations when they literally need the finest help in the world. Still, the best companies run aground sometimes, even this one. Bain and Company found itself in a quagmire in the late 1980s that even its own talent, the best in the world, could not fix. Desperate, whom did they call? Yes, it was Mitt Romney, a former partner and vice president there, whose ability to work miracles they already knew well. Romney met the challenge by deftly combining superb leadership, untiring negotiation with financiers, and a complex restructuring plan that few would have had the depth of intellect to comprehend, let alone conceive. In the end, Romney succeeded brilliantly on every front, and to this day Bain and Company figures among the most successful business consulting firms in the world. Romney has thus proved himself more than once, against impossible odds, as CEO and as governor of a major economy with a hostile legislature (that was Massachusetts, of course). Never have we had a president of Romney’s economic caliber in our history. Even CEOs with that kind of talent are exceedingly rare.

I do not mean that Mitt Romney should run for president. He has already done that, sacrificing his quest in order to preserve the party. What I mean is that McCain would be wise to select Mitt Romney as his running mate. Not only would McCain thereby secure the conservative vote, but he would give the Republican Party a fighting chance to keep the White House beyond 2012. This, of course, assumes that McCain would let Romney be the one to craft economic policy over the tumultuous term to come. But in fact, there is no other way to do it.

As dismal as this prospect sounds, without Romney on the ticket, the Republicans will lose the White House in 2012, even though they will win handily in the current election year. If I were advising Hillary Clinton, I would help her strategize her 2012 victory, and she would win. Are you ready for that?

Regardless of what choice McCain makes, perhaps it is enough to say that we must vote our conscience. I believe that this is philosophically the Republican way. Conscience and morality governed the philosophy of our first Republican president, Abraham Lincoln. It is the philosophy of the Republican Frederick Douglass, who helped Lincoln recruit volunteer units of African Americans to serve in the Civil War. It is the philosophy of the Republican Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., whose words, “not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character,” reflect the Republican ideal of respecting the pronouncement in the Declaration of Independence that our Creator endows us all, regardless of race, creed, or color, with “certain unalienable rights.” It is this philosophy that told us that slavery was evil when it was an issue, and that abortion is that same evil reincarnate today. However we vote, let us understand that we are the legacy of the conscience and morality of the Republican Party that wrote the Civil Rights Acts of 1866, 1871, 1875 (reincarnated as the Civil Rights Act of 1964), 1957, and 1960, as well as the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the US Constitution. We cannot act but in accordance with that honorable and far-sighted legacy. We must be honest with ourselves and vote in the best interest of our country’s future, not simply for the lesser of two evils.

I have done my best to consider the future, and my choice is clear. If John McCain selects Mitt Romney as his running mate, my conscience will dictate that I vote Republican. If he does not, then I fear for my nation’s future, and my conscience impels me to vote for someone whose voice more closely matches my own. Perhaps that is former Republican Dr. Alan Keyes, should he run on his own. Perhaps that is former Republican Chuck Baldwin of the Constitution Party. Perhaps that is former Republican Bob Barr of the Libertarian Party. Under the circumstances of the present time, no such choice will deprive McCain of his victory on November 4. Indeed, it would be neither honorable nor ethical to try to do that per se, despite our legitimate misgivings about McCain from the conservative point of view. But at least we can be true to ourselves and to the better Republican ideals by voting our conscience. Perhaps by strengthening these other philosophically conservative forces, we can help restore the moral philosophy of our forebears, including Lincoln, Douglass, and King, to the Republican Party, a philosophy that at last became consonant with conservatism when Ronald Reagan united the party under the tripartite banner of moral, fiscal, and defense conservatism in 1980.

I live in Georgia. That means that my state is going to vote Republican regardless of my personal choices. My voting for Keyes, Baldwin, or Barr will have no impact on electoral votes. If I lived in a blue state, I would do the same, with the same impact on the outcome. If I lived in a close state, perhaps I would experience more of a crisis of conscience, but in fact, I believe in the end the only good I can do is to do the same. If the Republican Party must go under in 2012, I do not wish to be a part of that demise. I am a philosophical Republican, not a Republican “at all cost.” I refuse to forget the legacy that my vote represents. I believe Mitt Romney embodies that legacy in the most critical way relevant to the coming crisis, and I will pursue that conviction into the voting booth. Should McCain confirm our worst fears by selecting another liberal instead of a conservative for the number-two spot, let us let our conscience prevail, not our fear of Democrat socialism. Come Election Day, let us not check our conscience at the door. Let us instead build our future upon it.

Richard S. Voss, Ph.D.
Former Co-Chair of the Mitt Romney Campaign for Muscogee County, Georgia

Still the Real Deal!

Governor Mitt Romney has suspended his campaign. Actually, he and his advisors had identified a workable route to a possible victory yesterday, and his advisors gave him overwhelming encouragement to go through with it. But Mitt thought it over yesterday evening and decided that the result could leave an irreparable split in the Republican party and deprive the party of the opportunity to unify for the general election, so he went against his advisors’ advice and chose to suspend his campaign.

This is Mitt the CEO. He knows the final decision is his and his alone, despite the importuning of his advisors. He will always make that final decision based on his incontestable character and conscience.

Mitt understands political strategy only too well. In his address today to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), he said: “If I fight on in my campaign, all the way to the convention, I would forestall the launch of a national campaign and make it more likely that Senator Clinton or Obama would win. And in this time of war, I simply cannot let my campaign be a part of aiding a surrender to terror.”

It was clear after Super Tuesday that a strategic shift was in order. If anyone could have pulled it off, it was Mitt Romney. But to what effect? The risk was not that Mitt could not have done it, but in all strategic endeavors uncertainty must hold sway. If John McCain nevertheless secured the nomination (e.g., by teaming up with Mike Huckabee), then the intense heat of the political conflict among the candidates during the intervening months could have created a rift in the party that would have invited a Democratic victory.

Mitt knows that the party must regroup for a November victory, but an unusually close race for the nomination could leave intraparty contentions too strong too late to permit that regrouping. It is clear that these words of his are quite genuine: “If this were only about me, I would go on. But I entered this race because I love America, and because I love America, I feel I must now stand aside, for our party and for our country.”

What are we therefore to do? The answer is self-evident. Mitt placed his party before his own political aspirations. It did not matter that he was in fact the best man for the job, even the most effective President we ever would have had. If getting the job meant the possibility of crippling the party by November, he would have nothing to do with it. This is not because he is simply a fan of the Republican Party; it is because there is a critical, life-or-death difference between the two parties today. A Democratic victory in November would endanger our survival as a nation. Mitt said: “I will continue to stand for conservative principles. I will fight alongside you for all the things we believe in. And one of those things is that we cannot allow the next President of the United States to retreat in the face evil extremism.”

But if the Republican Party ends up nominating someone without strong conservative credentials, where does that leave us? The answer is that Mitt wants us to strengthen the conservative principles of the Republican Party platform, not abandon it to contrary forces. We will vote Republican in the fall. And accepting that fact places a profound burden on us: We must make sure that, whoever is the nominee, we lay the heavy cloak of conservatism on his shoulders, whether he has the strength to stand beneath it or not. And we must make him wear that cloak perpetually.

To do this, we have one imperative: Energetically promote the three-legged stool of fiscal conservatism, defense conservatism, and social conservatism in the Republican Party platform. Strategically, this means that we must promote a pattern in the remaining political races that goes furthest toward keeping the pressure of the tripartite conservative agenda strong. This entails three main directions of activity: (1) Minimize McCain’s votes in the remaining states, in order to maximize his need to negotiate over the party platform; (2) enthusiastically promote the campaigns of all conservatives who are running for congressional seats; and (3) energetically promote our tripartite conservative platform among those congressional candidates. We do not want another Mark Foley to crop up because we cared more about a Republican victory than about conservatism itself.

In the meantime, we must also promote a strong economy, both as a news item and as a matter of the public choices that our current representatives make, for this will ensure a Republican victory in November. The media will try hard to portray our demonstrably strong economy as being in serious trouble, depicting, for example, the temporary slowing of growth that we are currently experiencing as though it were actually a decline! In fact, we continue to grow, and we must not let a loose media distort the truth in this regard. Nevertheless, without our guidance, desperate people in Washington may be tempted to resort to desperate measures, to fix what is not broken. Keep on the lookout for any tax increase or other Keynesian fix that your senators or congressmen might contemplate, and oppose it as vigorously as you can!

Thanks to Mitt Romney’s powerful campaign, whoever wins the Republican nomination will now be under great pressure to work with Mitt to make sure conservatism stays strong, and that our economy flourishes over the next four years. Meanwhile, we are also under great pressure to encourage Mitt to stick around and lend his expertise where it counts, and to make sure our representatives open their ears when he speaks. The US economy over the next four years will not be smooth sailing. Only the genius of geniuses can keep it strong enough to support a Republican victory in 2012. It is no exaggeration to say that, left to his own devices, McCain would doom our party by failing to safeguard the economy. Folks, Mitt will still be the Real Deal after November. We will need him! Let’s not forget it.

Richard Voss

Romney is STILL the Real Deal!

Ronald Kessler’s Newsmax article of Dec. 26 is still very relevant today. Kessler refers back to an article previously published in the print edition of Newsmax, entitled “Romney to the Rescue: Romney’s Got the Right Stuff for 2008.”

Contrasting Romney to his major opponents, Kessler cites Huckabee’s commuting or pardoning 1,033 criminals, including twelve murderers. Unlike Romney. He cites Huckabee’s raising taxes, including a 37% increase in the state sales tax. Unlike Romney. He cites Huckabee’s “serial ethics violations and misuse of funds” in running the Arkansas Governor’s Mansion. Unlike Romney.

Kessler also cites McCain’s volatile temper and outbursts, which observers have described as the consequence of simply disagreeing with McCain! Unlike Romney. And McCain’s opposing President Bush’s tax cuts, twice! Unlike Romney. Need we revisit McCain-Feingold, McCain-Edwards, and McCain-Kennedy? As Mark Levin (the Great One) asked, we have plenty of McCain-Liberal; where is McCain-Conservative?

Kessler concludes his review with the following true story, which demonstrates Romney’s character:

“[W]hen told in July 1996 that the 14-year-old daughter of one of his partners had been missing in New York for three days, Romney closed down Bain Capital and asked its 30 partners and employees to fly to New York to try to find her. The girl had gone to a rave party and taken ecstasy. ‘I don’t care how long it takes, we’re going to find her,’ Romney told the girl’s father Robert Gay. As a result of a massive campaign orchestrated by Romney, he was able to locate and rescue the girl when she was within a day of dying from the effects of an overdose.”

Mitt Romney is an incredibly rare find in politics. Anyone who decides to read his unofficial biography by Hugh Hewitt or any other reference about him is invariably impressed beyond his wildest expectations at what kind of man Romney really is. Once we’ve read about him and then subsequently hear him describe one of his accomplishments, it doesn’t sound nearly as monumental as the reality with which we’ve become familiar. Are Romney’s successes so wondrous as even defying adequate expression itself? Yes, they really are. Romney’s successes are literally unbelievable (i.e., you really will have trouble believing that anyone can produce the miraculous achievements that he has indeed chalked up, without ever failing!). Maybe Romney is too good to be true, by definition: Because it’s so hard to believe what we see, his amazing success may be his only defect. “He can’t be real,” you are tempted to exclaim. No one can do all that! Correction: No one except Romney. Romney is still the real deal.

Richard Voss

Delegate Perspective

WATCH OUT! Some sources are giving you an incorrect delegate count! Here's the real deal:

Delegates allocated so far: 1,135 (47.7% of total)
Delegates remaining: 1,245 (52.3% of total—more than half!)
Mitt Romney's committed delegates so far: 268 (22.5% of goal)
John McCain's committed delegates so far: 675 (56.7% of goal)
Delegates needed to win the nomination: 1,191

Now for the hard part! The conservative message must get out to Louisiana, Washington, and Kansas by Feb. 9, and to Virginia, Maryland, and the District of Columbia by Feb. 12. Assuming Mack gets the three upcoming winner-take-all states (VA, DC, VT), which will be his major effort, Mitt needs to average 30% of the vote in all others to have a chance of depriving Mack of a clear victory and forcing a negotiated outcome. However, given the collusion evident between Mack & Huck (witness the West Virginia manipulation), conservatives must push to convince their compatriots to abandon Huck to deprive Mack of Huck's delegates.

The race is not over! Liberalism is currently infecting the Republican base, and Mack has so far secured clearly only a minority of conservative voters! What will happen in November if Mack rides this wave to the general election, with most conservatives against him?

Mitt needs your support more than ever! Winning the nomination now requires a fundamental change in our mindset. Expand your focus, find out who's running for Congress in your area, and secure their support for Mitt's conservative agenda. When this is all over, we'll need not only a conservative force in the White House, but a conservative force in the Congress. If Mack is in one of these places, we must lay the heavy mantle of conservatism upon him, even if he collapses under the pressure!

Cheers - Richard Voss

It Takes a Governor—not a Senator!

Does a senator have what it takes to be President? What about a governor? Surely, the country will survive with a senator as President. But the truth is that it will fare significantly worse than under a President with the executive experience that only comes from being a governor. A governor is a president, after all, of a sovereign state. Thus, a governor has already practiced the Presidency, and no governor can get away with running for President unless he was a success.

But what proof do we have that being a governor makes a difference? Easy: Just list all past Presidents in our country’s history, note whether they were previously governors, and calculate how much we were better off by the end of their presidencies on a couple of telling measures. I’ve actually done this, using real gross domestic product (real GDP) and the unemployment rate. Good Presidents should increase real GDP and decrease unemployment, on average, despite the ups and downs of wars and recessions, as long as we try to get a long-term average to wash out the specific effects of such anomalies in our analysis.

Real GDP refers to the total productivity of the country for one year, not including the effects of inflation (hence “real” instead of “nominal”). Historically, through all of its ups and downs, the US real GDP has grown at an average of 3.7988% per year (from $3.6 billion in 1790 to $11.3194 trillion in 2006, in year-2000 dollars). However, the average rate of growth under governor-Presidents was higher than under non-governor-Presidents: 4.1% per year versus 3.6% per year. For Republican governor-Presidents, in fact, it was 4.2% per year, versus 3.9% per year for Democratic governor-Presidents. Obviously, our best bet is to elect a Republican who has been a governor.

The unemployment rate refers to the proportion of people who should be working but who are not. Annual unemployment data are more limited historically than GDP data, but we can at least go back to Harry Truman’s administration. Since then, unemployment has dropped an average of 3.6% per year under governor-Presidents, but it has increased by an average of 4.3% per year under non-governor-Presidents! Once again, Republican governor-Presidents fared better than Democratic governor-Presidents: 4.0% average annual decline in unemployment versus 3.3% average annual decline. Again, our best bet is to elect a Republican who has been a governor.

But what about experience as Vice President? It helps, but only for GDP (they do a lot worse in unemployment), and governor-Presidents still do better. What about experience as a Senator? Worthless. Senators don’t manage anything! They just argue about what new laws to write (and then make their clerks write them for them). How about First Lady? Take a guess...

Now that you know that it takes a governor, take your pick (we have two governors in the race): The Arkansas economy is about as big as that of Slovakia. Not too bad, but it’s only one-fourth the size of Massachusetts. Massachusetts is bigger than Switzerland! (Care to try your hand at managing Switzerland?) Which one is a tougher state to run? Now remember this: Mitt Romney turned his “Switzerland’s” $3 billion deficit into a $700 million surplus in just four years, while balancing the budget every year he was in office!

It takes a governor. But in Mitt Romney, we have a lot more than that. We have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. For Mitt, Massachusetts was just one amazing success in a flawless track record of the strongest executive experience you will ever witness.

With the economy as it is today, this is no time to put a Senator in the White House. It takes a governor! And Mitt Romney is the governor that it takes.

Vote for Mitt Romney on Tuesday. Then prepare to be amazed.

Cheers - Richard Voss

Competence, Ethics, Conservatism

Several of you have asked me about my preference in the Georgia presidential primary, to be held next Tuesday, February 5 with early voting continuing through this Friday. As you surely know, the remaining GOP candidates are Mike Huckabee, John McCain, Mitt Romney, and Ron Paul.

When you get to the polls, I respectfully urge you to cast your vote for Mitt Romney.

We need a president who can run our huge nation competently. Our nominee must not only understand the economy and how it works, but must be someone who has governed, balanced a budget, fought for lower taxes and pushed their legislature in a conservative direction. The viable nominee needs diverse experience running things, rather than strictly serving as a lawmaker.

Our nominee must be perfectly clean ethically, considering the difficulties of our party in the past few years.

Our nominee must share our conservative ideals, such as lower taxes, reducing abortions and illegal immigration. Should the GOP stay in the congressional minority, our republican president must continue to press the conservative agenda and not be a rubber stamp for a left-leaning compromise. For instance, we cannot have a nominee that would provide tax rebates for illegal immigrants.

Please join me in keeping the Republican party conservative, and vote Mitt Romney for president.

As an extremely successful businessman in founding and running Bain Capital, which helped start up and turnaround companies such as Staples and Dominos, he knows how to create jobs and can deal with the landscape should we have a recession.

He has experience dealing in international affairs from running the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics and turning it from scandal to great success.

Serving as the Governor of Massachusetts, he proved that he can deal with a Democratic congress while still holding his own conservative values and not caving to the other party.

He possesses all the qualities we need and more. You can read more about Mitt Romney here and here.

David R. Helmick

Thank You, Lynn!

Congressman Lynn Westmoreland endorses Romney

David R. Helmick

Early Voting is Here!

Muscogee Republicans: Georgia’s 2008 presidential primary is not until next Tuesday, February 5 (“Super Tuesday”), but early voting began today.

Be sure to get out and vote early to avoid lines next Tuesday. Early voting continues until this Friday, from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. in the west wing of the Columbus Government Center, and from 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at the Columbus Public Library (3000 Macon Rd.).

Of course, you must present valid identification.

However, you do not need a reason to vote early!

Get out and vote ASAP! I did today at noon in the Government Center. There was no line at all!

Yours,

Dave Helmick

Chairman, Muscogee County Young Republicans

Secretary, Muscogee County Republican Party

www.muscogeeyoungrepublicans.org

(706) 536-2252

Mitt Romney—Once in a Lifetime

We have a rare opportunity. We have a good field of Republicans, all honorable men with stable principles. For most, their track records have spots, some more than others. But how many of them got their spots managing complex economies, while engaged in a tug-of-war with opposing legislatures? With two governors and the mayor of the largest US city, we have good executives from which to choose. But this time, we have a lot more that just a respectable roster.

First, let’s get this point straight: If we can manage the economy, we can solve other problems, like pursuing school improvement to boost Georgia’s competitiveness, or training programs to get people out of poverty. Statistics show that a good economy reduces crime, divorce rates, and even abortions. An experienced executive will take care of the economy. We have three of those on the current roster of Republican candidatesd. An experienced lawmaker without executive experience simply won’t. We have two of those on the roster.

Here are our three executives: (1) Mike Huckabee (bachelor’s degree in religion; chief executive of Arkansas); (2) Rudy Giuliani (JD from NYU; chief executive of New York City); and (3) Mitt Romney (MBA + JD from Harvard; chief executive of Bain Capital, Bain & Company, the 2002 Winter Olympics, and Massachusetts). The $338 billion Massachusetts economy is bigger than Switzerland. New York City’s $960 billion economy approaches South Korea and would be the third largest state economy (after California and Texas), if it were a state. Arkansas is a $92 billion economy, about as big as Ecuador or Slovakia. Thus, Huckabee’s education is poor for an executive, while his experience is fairly good. (Even Slovakia takes skill to manage.) Giuliani’s education is good (a law degree), while his experience is quite substantial. (The NYC economy is almost as big as Canada or Mexico. Yes, that's huge.) But Romney’s education is unprecedented, stronger in breadth than any candidate we’ve ever seen (business + law), and so is his experience (business genius + successful governor of a large economy).

But there’s much more than that. Working for the Boston Consulting Group (famous in business strategy textbooks for its strategic decision-making model), then for Bain & Company, another business consultancy, Mitt Romney acquired the best executive training you can get. The job of a business consultancy is to help companies solve tough problems. Members of these large consultancies are so well known for their expertise that client companies often court them to become their own CEOs.

Romney left consulting to found Bain Capital, a hugely successful investment firm that made money by fixing broken businesses (or at least salvaging as much as possible of those that were beyond repair), the toughest job there is in business. A badly managed business that goes too long without facing its problems threatens the jobs of everyone it employs. But for someone who knows how to fix even the worst problems, it’s an opportunity. Thanks to Romney’s company, a lot of jobs that would have been lost were saved instead, and Bain Capital justifiably prospered from its great success.

Meanwhile, remember Bain & Company? Without Romney, the experts at Bain & Company ran aground on the 1991 recession and started to go under. They begged Romney to come back and save the company from collapse. Romney took over, restructured the company, and returned it to strong profitability, all without any layoffs.

Now, wait a minute. Wasn’t Bain & Company already well known for its ability to solve complex business problems? Wasn’t it in the same league of premier business consultancies as Boston Consulting Group and McKinsey & Company (where IBM CEO Lou Gerstner came from)? Yes, it was. And now you know. When the world’s foremost business experts ran into a business problem they could not solve, they called on the only man who could: Mitt Romney. Now, that’s a story of human genius that needs to be told more often.

Next, the 2002 Winter Olympics was $379 million behind its revenue goals and racked by scandal. Once again, Romney took over, cleaned it up, and gave the Olympics a $100 million profit. Then he gave his $825,000 salary to charity. All in a day’s work.

Maybe the tutelage Romney received from a strong, accomplished father (successful CEO of American Motors and successful governor of Michigan) has a lot to do with his business acumen and stable conservative principles. If so, it shows what a dad can do. Thanks to him, we have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

In the past, we’ve usually found a candidate for the White House who has had great ideas, great principles, great experience, or great education. But when have we seen “all of the above”? Remember this on February 5.

Richard S. Voss, Ph.D.
Business Professor, Columbus, Georgia
mittmuscogee@gmail.com