The Holy Cow! Candidate - © Copyright 2005 The Atlantic Monthly
Romney distinguished himself at Bain, and in 1984 he was asked to lead a venture-capital spinoff. Starting out as a modest enterprise, with a handful of people from Bain & Company and roughly $30 million, Bain Capital was soon wildly successful. Among the first companies it invested in was Staples, an office-supply store conceived by one of Romney’s business-school contemporaries, which had been shunned by some venture capitalists; Romney and others saw the potential. In 1986 Staples, Incorporated had one store. Today it has nearly 1,700.But while Bain Capital flourished, its progenitor, Bain & Company, struggled, and by 1990 it was on the verge of financial collapse. Romney was called back to the firm, where he restructured the debt, persuaded all but one of the partners to stay for at least a year, and installed a new leadership team. The company survived; and as a symbolic gesture, Romney drew a salary of only one dollar a year. (As governor of Massachusetts he draws no salary at all. A lesson he says his father taught him is that one shouldn’t get involved in public life until it is a question of service rather than employment.)
Romney took more than skills and knowledge away from Bain; he also acquired a way of thinking, a Weltanschauung—call it the Bain world view. He sees waste and inefficiency in almost moral terms; in fact, his crusade against inefficiency is practically a governing philosophy. “Government inefficiency wastes resources and places a burden on citizens and employers that’s harmful to our future,” he told me. “And anytime I see waste, or patronage, it bothers me.”
“As a nation we are in a global economic race with huge populations in Asia,” he continued, “where economies are growing at extraordinary rates with highly educated, highly motivated, and in many cases highly entrepreneurial individuals. Anytime government puts waste and excessive burdens of regulation and unnecessary taxation on its citizens, it’s putting us behind in that race.”
Romney loves the very vocabulary of business—the rhythm of charts and diagrams and boardroom presentations. One afternoon, standing in a newly built Silver Line bus station in South Boston, he introduced a transportation plan that he hoped would be a blueprint for the next twenty years. Speaking in terms that only a consultant could love, he said, “Let me now take a journey with you in … PowerPoint.”
July 30th, 2005 at 6:52 pm
I read the article, Gurl, and I agree that it is very good. Questions like those about the garments WILL be asked, and geting them out of the way early, and in a manner which flatters the Governor, are a bonus.
I honestly think that the punditocracy is overestimating the hostility of evangelicals to Mormons. What they want is a moral PERSON, and Romney is that.
Don’t forget, Gore was the Baptist, and Bush is a Methodist. The person is bigger than the denomination.