Romney Knows Excellence
RealClearPolitics has a story about Romney making some new hires on his campaign staff. The selection of Rich Beeson and Neil Newhouse is receiving praise from Republican insiders who hail it as a savvy move. (h/t to Jim Geragthy)
Jen Rubin says,
This is classic Romney - hire the best people. Although he came up short in 2008, it was widely agreed upon in GOP circles that the Romney staff was the best organized, the most effective and took the candidate as far as he could go in that election cycle.
So what's my point? Simply this - Mitt Romney knows how to put together well-run, effective organizations. Whether it's a venture capital firm or the Olympics or a governor's administration, Mitt knows how to get the right people in the right place and motivate those people to do an excellent job.
Tired of the keystone cops running Washington, be they Democrat or Republican? That won't happen in a Romney administration. He may not be the most ideologically pure guy out there (more on that in another post) but there is no one in the Republican field who is a more effective executive and manager - and that's got to count for something.
Having the most conservative person on the planet in the oval office won't mean a thing if they can't assemble and run an effective organization as large as the behemoth known as the US government.
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May '10
Re: Romney Knows Excellence
One word: RomneyCare.
Aug '10
Re: Romney Knows Excellence
Hate to be a sourpuss, Frozen, but you know this is gonna come up: does RomneyCare qualify as a well-run, effective organization?
EDIT: Wow, it already came up -- some one beat me to it. Cross post.
Edited on Jan 14, 2011 at 11:38amMay '10
Re: Romney Knows Excellence
I don't just want an effective government. I don't want the game to be about who can run it best. I don't want an "effectively run" behemoth.
I want the government downsized. I want a government that knows its limits. I want the behemoth-- to not be a behemoth.
Of course we want the legitimate parts of government to be effective, but at this point there's far too much of government doing the types of things which by their very nature government is incapable of doing effectively.
Even if Mitt Romney could create a perfect, effectively-run government healthcare system, for example (if that were even possible), it would only take the next administration to bungle it all up.
Edited on Jan 14, 2011 at 11:00amAug '10
Re: Romney Knows Excellence
Chris Deleon
I don't just want an effective government. I don't want the game to be about who can run it best. I don't want an "effectively run" behemoth.
I want the behemoth-- to not be a behemoth.
Exactly.
Sep '10
Re: Romney Knows Excellence
Sounds like a job for an overweight guy to cut a behemoth down to size. Chris Christie where are you?
Dec '10
Re: Romney Knows Excellence
Meh. And I can barely work up that amount of excitement about Romney. In '08 I refered to him as the Stepford candidate. My opinion probably won't change in '12.
Jul '10
Re: Romney Knows Excellence
Ack. I'd rather have a do-nothing President.
I don't government to work better, I want it to work less.
I'd prefer someone who is ideologically a conservative-libertarian who is only interested in reducing the size and scope of the Federal Government over a "Center-Right" politician who wants every little government program to work better.
May '10
Re: Romney Knows Excellence
If he would simply own up to the problem with his signature "achievement" he has a chance to get out from under that albatross. But pretending it's not there is not a winning strategy.
Aug '10
Re: Romney Knows Excellence
Midget Faded Rattlesnake
Hate to be a sourpuss, Frozen, but you know this is gonna come up: does RomneyCare qualify as a well-run, effective organization?
. · Jan 14 at 10:53am
Edited on Jan 14 at 11:38 am
Uh, Midge, RomneyCare isn't an organization, it was a piece of legislation.
I'm a little concerned that many people, including some on Ricochet, don't understand want RomneyCare was about. I'm sure I'll have a chance to explain it but I would like my fellow subscribers to tell me - in more than one sentence - what they believe it to be.
My concern is that some use RomneyCare as an epithet without understanding what it is and what it means about Romney's style of governing.
Aug '10
Re: Romney Knows Excellence
Chris Deleon
I want the government downsized. I want a government that knows its limits. I want the behemoth-- to not be a behemoth.
Edited on Jan 14 at 11:00 am
I can certainly empathize with those of you who want a much smaller government. However, I also don't feel that a proper constitutional-sized federal government is a reality in our day and age. I'm afraid that boat sailed long ago. There simply aren't enough people in this country who will vote to drastically slash the size of government.
Reagan promised to get rid of the Departments of Energy and Education when he ran in 1980; last I checked both are still with us. If Reagan couldn't accomplish that, who could?
All of us on this site want the behemoth to not be a behemoth but wishing won't make it so. Neither will a conservative president - we have this thing called congress filled with people who love to spend our money as fast as they can.
Having an effective conservative in the White House won't fix everything but it can make an important difference in some very important ways.
Aug '10
Re: Romney Knows Excellence
Frozen Chosen
Uh, Midge, RomneyCare isn't an organization, it was a piece of legislation.
I'm a little concerned that many people, including some on Ricochet, don't understand want RomneyCare was about.
So RomneyCare was legislation -- think I didn't know that? -- but it reorganized a major sector of Massachusetts' economy. Can you honestly say RomneyCare didn't involve organization?
I hope you don't include me in your hypothetical count of those who haven't done their homework on RomneyCare. I did plenty of homework on RomneyCare back in the months leading up to ObamaCare's passage -- because of similarities between the two schemes. I have the files and essays on my computer to prove it, but I won't bore you.
True, I'm not as well-versed in RomneyCare now as I was a year ago. But I've moved on to other things.
I expect I'm not alone in my understanding of RomneyCare. It's possible that those of us who feel bitterness towards RomneyCare feel it not out of ignorance, but out of knowledge.
(Sorry for the pugnacious tone -- this issue strikes very close to home for me.)
Edited on Jan 14, 2011 at 2:34pmMay '10
Re: Romney Knows Excellence
One of the signs of an effective leader is willingness to acknowledge and correct mistakes. In this case, there were two significant mistakes- 1) going ahead even when the Mass legislature had changed the law to negate important controls, and 2) failing to recognize that insurance reform is not cost reform.
He may be saving this set of speeches and mea culpas for a strategic moment, but he'd better get to it before the big debates begin, because that is not the time to be addressing it.
May '10
Re: Romney Knows Excellence
The other thing I never liked about Romney is his penchant to say whatever he thinks people want to hear.
That's a fault shared by many of his fellow politicians, so he's certainly not unique in this aspect. But I didn't get the sense that he had much of a core set of beliefs for which he'd be willing to tell people things they didn't want to hear.
Perhaps he'd be a reasonable consensus-builder. Or compromiser. Sometimes that is necessary. Sometimes it is not.
Aug '10
Re: Romney Knows Excellence
You make valid points here, Duane, and I also agree Mitt should address this issue soon. However, your points are valid in part due to the benefit of hindsight.
Everyone now knows that RomneyCare was a bad idea - after the fact. Before it was passed, there were those who warned of possible problems but it had never been tried before in this country on such a scale, to my knowledge.
Romney tried to solve a problem where such attempts should be made - in those laboratories of democracy known as states. The fact that it was a very liberal laboratory surely didn't help Mitt but the attempt was made nonetheless.
Romney tried to find a way to use his Medicaid dollars in a more efficient way. The money was already being spent, the goal of RomneyCare was to reduce the tremendous growth in Medicaid spending.
May '10
Re: Romney Knows Excellence
We may not be able to reach the stars, but we still aim for them.
A properly-sized government is an ideal we can never achieve, even if we could agree on what it looked like. But we'll get a lot closer to it if we aim for it, than if we just give up on the whole concept and decide to play the game on the big-government team's field, using their rules (that is, just accepting that the government is bound to get or stay large, and try to run it "better" than the other team).
Aug '10
Re: Romney Knows Excellence
Midget Faded Rattlesnake
Frozen Chosen
Uh, Midge, RomneyCare isn't an organization, it was a piece of legislation.
I'm a little concerned that many people, including some on Ricochet, don't understand want RomneyCare was about.
So RomneyCare was legislation -- think I didn't know that? -- but it reorganized a major sector of Massachusetts' economy. Can you honestly say RomneyCare didn't involve organization?
I hope you don't include me in your hypothetical count of those who haven't done their homework on RomneyCare. I did plenty of homework on RomneyCare back in the months leading up to ObamaCare's passage -- because of similarities between the two schemes. I have the files and essays on my computer to prove it, but I won't bore you.
Didn't have you or anyone else in particular in mind when I wrote this. I'm just assuming there are many on Ricochet who know more than me and a few who know less.
This next election is very important and my main concern is that we carefully vet the candidates based on facts and not misunderstandings, cliches or feelings.
Aug '10
Re: Romney Knows Excellence
Frozen Chosen
Everyone now knows that RomneyCare was a bad idea - after the fact.
That "everyone" who knows after the fact includes Romney himself. His apparent hesitancy to own up to what he must know after the fact to be true just doesn't inspire my trust.
Trust may just be a "feeling", but it's an important one.
Edited on Jan 14, 2011 at 3:19pmMay '10
Re: Romney Knows Excellence
Doesn't change the fact that it was the wrong piece of legislation to push for. Who cares if you are effective if you push the wrong things? I wish he had been a bit less effective at pushing that one through.
May '10
Re: Romney Knows Excellence
The problem always is and always will be that people disagree on the facts. Especially statistics. You could take the same figures and use them to make a candidate look like a devil or an angel by putting them in different contexts.
Politics is a dirty, dirty business. Most candidates don't have a problem doing hit jobs on each other using the so-called "facts" presented in just the right way. It's a lot easier to feel comfortable with that when it's done against the other side. The ugliness of it becomes much more apparent when you see it within our own camp, as in the primaries.
Because of that, it's hard work to get to the truth of a matter, and even then reasonable people may continue to disagree.
Edited on Jan 14, 2011 at 3:53pmAug '10
Re: Romney Knows Excellence
If it makes you feel any better, Frozen, I'd pick Romney over Huckabee any day -- and, since I think Palin's just taken too many hits at this point, Palin, too, if it came to that.
I have no illusions that worse things than Romney could happen.
But I would also (at this point) have more trust in someone like a Mitch Daniels than a Romney.