It's Official

Last evening Mitt Romney formally accepted the nomination of the Republican Party to be the nominee for President. Sadly he was upstaged by Marco Rubio and Condoleezza Rice who delivered excellent speeches. Mr. Romney did not give me any sense that he is the man for the job. I have some serious reservations for many reasons.

It was a night where the campaign rolled out what can only be called character witnesses to vouch for the humanity of Romney.With the election eight weeks away I should not have any questions about your character. Sadly the witness were friends to which he provided support during some very difficult personal crises. While moving, I am not convinced that Mr. Romney would have the same compassion if he were enacting policy that would impact people he does not know and does not have to see.

When you are running a country, or any governmental organization, that impacts the lives of many you must be able to total ignore emotion and the WIIFM (what's in it for me) tendencies. More than that, you have to ignore the tendency to try and figure out what's in it for my cronies. In crafting public policy you have to really understand the impact of what you are about to decide. It cannot be simply about the bottom line or the intended social benefits. You have to meld the two to obtain the best overall outcome. You have to consider the impact of your decision on policies that are already on the books.

Here is an example. Suppose there is a bill coming before you that bans artificial sweeteners because there is evidence that they contain carcinogens. That's just one side of the issue. They may contain carcinogens but what about people who are on diets that are restrictive? What do you tell diabetics? Yes they can use stevia but what if they don't like the aftertaste? People who can ingest sugar without adverse affects have many varieties to choose from. But, because you happen to be diabetic we are going to punish you and say it is stevia or nothing.

If I were a legislator I would vote against banning artificial sweeteners. I would posit that there is not enough evidence that directly connects the development of certain cancers to the ingestion of artificial sweeteners. I would also posit that based on the tests conducted you would have to ingest such quantities the risk was minimal. Forget the sugar lobby who would benefit financially. Forget the health lobby that is against artificial sweeteners. I would only listen to them if their recommendation was to ban all sweeteners.

So, if I were convinced that Mr. Romney could go through this type of deliberative process, I would have a different opinion of him. He is a bottom line kind of guy with a bean counter for a running mate. We need to count the beans bu all means. However sometimes you need to add a few beans in order to implement good public policy.

Bottom line, running the United States is much more complex than running Bain Capital. Bain Capital did not create jobs. Bain Capital created money. And, the real story is that whether the business Bain funded was successful or not, Bain made money. That is the business private equity firms are in. I admit that private equity firms are not as voracious as Venture Capital concerns. A VC has no problem putting you on an accelerated forced march with the intent of overtaking your company.

So from what I saw and heard on Thursday evening, I cannot say that there was any substance. He is going to  create 12 million jobs but he offered no details on how he would do that either. They are just words. I also think that if he were to get into office he would quickly find out that running Bain Capital is a piece of cake compared to running the United States. So, it is time to stop telling everyone why Obama has failed. It is time for you to tell everyone what your plan is for America and how you intend to include EVERYONE, irrespective of ethnicity, race or creed.