It’s the Economy, Stupid

The U.S. election will be all about one thing: Jobs. Republican would-be candidate Mitt Romney calls himself a business expert, but what he lacks is expertise.

There’s a lot written in Germany about the coming U.S. elections. It’s as if all Germans are generally interested in the subject. I grew up in the United States and have known about Mitt Romney ever since he ran for governor of Massachusetts in 2002. I voted for his Democratic opponent in that election. So Romney is a well-known figure in the political world, but whether he can be the Republican nominee this time around is something I can’t predict. He tried the same thing four years ago and failed. The only thing I can say with any certainty is that the next election will be all about the economy and jobs.

Nearly four years ago when Obama and McCain battled one another in the same race, Obama was successful because he was better able to project economic competence.

Romney got the same number of votes in Iowa this time as he did in 2008 and improved his take at the polls in New Hampshire by only 20,000. Those aren’t optimum numbers for him, and he could be facing even more difficulties ahead. The more candidates who drop out of the primary circus, the harder opposition to Romney gets. His record as governor of Massachusetts and his election year promises will come under increasing scrutiny and criticism.

Now Romney wants us to believe he knows how to create jobs. He brags openly that during his tenure at the private equity firm Bain Capital Management, he was responsible for the creation of 100,000 new jobs. Romney argues that claim is proven by the success of three gigantic companies: Staples (office supplies), Sports Authority (sports equipment and clothing) and Domino’s (pizza). The claim is, of course, specious. First of all, the tremendous growth of all three companies took place after Romney was out of the picture at Bain. Secondly, the success of the three chains was accompanied by the simultaneous failure of smaller competing chains and independent stores. Wherever a Staples superstore opens, smaller office supply retailers are forced to close down, pack up and move. And third, the jobs created by Bain Capital were generally lower-paying positions than they were originally.

The real business of Bain Capital was to buy up companies and plunder them of their assets. That’s what happened to Dade International, a pharmaceutical manufacturer Bain bought on credit. Shortly thereafter, Bain fired 2,000 employees and finally sold its stake in Dade, realizing a profit of some 800 percent. Dade had to declare bankruptcy, thus Romney’s early days in business were spent as a vulture capitalist.

The other candidates are no better.

The remaining Republican candidates don’t show up much better on questions of economics. None of them provide concrete answers to the pressing issue of economic reform, preferring to simply leave behind a questionable string of bizarre anecdotes. Rick Santorum, a Christian fundamentalist, is now famous as the man who brought the corpse of his dead son home from the hospital to introduce him to his siblings and to allow him to sleep for at least one night in the arms of his family. Newt Gingrich comes off in public as a nagging hypocrite who has no real ideas. Ron Paul at least wants to cut military spending, and is popular among young voters because of his rock-solid Grandpa image. Last but not least, Jon Huntsman wanted to distance himself from the rest of the field by being less shrill. The result was that he just looked colorless and devoid of new ideas.

It has to be satisfying to Obama that the Republicans have yet to come up with a real competitor. But, he also has to show that he has his own plans to tackle unemployment and the will to turn them into reality.