Romney's Business Plan for America, Inc.

Mitt Romney is a weak candidate. What he offers are empty appeals to America’s past greatness and cold social darwinism for a society which is already more broken than ever. Reading his program, one would think he wanted to become CEO of the country — not its president.

He is not running, but his spirit is summoned every day and everyone is laying claim to his legacy: Ronald Reagan, who won the Cold War and who has probably influenced America more than any other president since World War II, serves as role model and icon to both Barack Obama and Mitt Romney. Democrat Obama has bowed to Reagan’s historic achievements several times already, and the Republican presidential candidate for the 2012 election wants to make believe that he could follow in the 40th president’s footsteps.

No, Romney can’t. He just proved that in Tampa. For four days the Republican Party struggled to give a soul to this brash former manager and flip-flopping former governor. Romney knows that he has a reputation for being stiff. Therefore he tries to present himself more as a fellow citizen than as a doer in his speech in Florida.

However, he is and remains the candidate who hopes that his dazzling résumé will outshine his pale personality. Romney promises a “turnaround,” a turnaround similar to the ones he managed as an efficiency expert for ailing companies. And he uses slogans like “The future is our destination.”* No, this candidate will never become an authority who — like Reagan — can give a struggling nation faith in a “new dawn for America.”

Even if Romney wanted to, he wouldn’t be allowed to follow in his idol’s footsteps. Let’s suppose that Ronald Reagan was resurrected and appeared in Tampa — the delegates would have probably chased their saint out as a “socialist” and “traitor.” American Republicans have radically moved to the right in the past 25 years. They may invoke Reagan, but they would curse his policies.

Reagan was successful. So successful that many Democrats (including Bill Clinton and Barack Obama) are now following his principally market-oriented approach. Reagan’s famous words in 1981, saying that the government isn’t the solution but the problem, have long since become common property. Four out of five Americans don’t trust Washington. However, Reagan was also a pragmatist. At the end of his presidency in 1989, 300,000 more Americans were employed by the state than when he started in 1981. He also approved a dozen new tax raises and he sought compromise with the Democrats wherever he could. Today’s Republicans consider all this heresy.

Romney’s Platitudes

What Romney offers are nostalgic but empty appeals to America’s past greatness and cold social darwinism for a society which is already more broken than ever. Romney, who comes from one of the best families, again and again evokes the American Dream, that is the promise that anyone who wants can go from washing dishes to becoming a millionaire in the U.S. Studies have long since revealed this to be a fairy tale, though: In the U.S., such a career is now much more rare than in the past — even more rare than in Europe.

Romney and his vice presidential candidate, Paul Ryan, vaguely talk about sacrifices. However, the bottom line is that they would only demand sacrifices from those who already have nothing or have too little. They want to take back Obama’s despised health care reform. They want to reduce taxes by $200,000 for millionaires, and in turn burden the middle class. Their diffuse plan to consolidate the budget (which is indeed necessary) would cut student loans as well as food aid to the poorest of the poor; it would slash spending on new streets and bridges, on research and innovation. America’s future would fall victim to their budget cuts — because America will be ill-equipped for the globalized world without these investments.

Romney’s political program sounds like a business plan for “America, Inc.”; as if he didn’t want to become president but CEO of this country. He doesn’t have a recipe for a sense of community, for a nation with social cohesion.

There are many reasons for this orientation. And there’s a suspicion: Abraham Lincoln’s and Ronald Reagan’s party is a refuge for white people. Nine out of 10 voters in the Republican primaries were pale-faces. The diverse, colorful America — the African American, Latino and Asian minorities — can be found in the Democratic Party. The Republicans, too, know the demographic trends. They know that the white majority will only be the largest minority in America by 2050.

However, they react reflexively by being defensive, by calling for harsher laws against illegal immigrants, by showing suspicion for social money going primarily to darker-skinned citizens. On the one hand Romney is courting Latino votes, but on the other hand his friends in the Republican Party have passed voting laws in many places which will prevent hundreds of thousands of black or brown voters from casting their ballots. This way, the Republican campaign of 2012 sometimes seems like the white man’s last battle.

No, Mitt Romney is a weak candidate. His strongest argument can only be the following: After four years in the White House, incumbent Obama is solely responsible for America’s crisis, for mass unemployment and decline. Surveys show Romney catching up; the election will be close. The chance that the economy will get better by then, improving public sentiment for Obama, is definitely smaller than Romney’s chance to polish his bland image by spending millions of dollars on advertising.

Obama Is Struggling, Too

Barack Obama is struggling, too. The incumbent has long since lost the aura of a hero and renewer. Almost four years of solid realpolitik have taken their toll on him and turned his hair grey. His health care reform is a historic achievement, but many of his plans came to grief in Washington’s party wars. He certainly missed his 2008 ambition of changing the trajectory of America, like Reagan did. He is not a great president, even though he now looks less small because of Romney.

In his campaign, Obama rationally calls for a social equilibrium, for modernizing the country. The rest is as true as it is bland: Change needs another four years. It’s too weak to attract his followers to the ballots. Obama will have to find a new, rousing message at the Democratic Party Convention next week. It’s correct to say that Romney would be worse for the country, but if Obama doesn’t have anything else to say, that’s what will become reality.

*Editor’s Note: Although this is a common saying, Romney’s use of this exact phrase cannot be verified.