There is no better testament to the marketing prowess of Herman Cain than that he gets applause when he tells audiences he’s not a politician — in the course of seeking their votes for the highest political office in the land.
Mitt Romney plays a version of the same card, arguing that “career politicians got us into this mess, and they simply don’t know how to get us out.”
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If Cain and Romney think so poorly of politics as a vocation, they could easily save themselves from any further taint. They could drop their arduous schedules, their fundraising pleas, their very public roles that open them up to ridicule and attack, and return to comfortable lives that would be welcomed by the vast majority of Americans who don’t thirst after political distinction.
Of course, neither will fold up shop until it becomes impossible to go on, or he succeeds. They don’t have the courage of what they want us to believe are their anti-politician convictions.
Cain’s status as a non-officeholder is entirely an accident of the poor judgment of Republican primary voters in his state of Georgia. He ran for the nomination to the U.S. Senate in 2004. He lost. Had he won, he might well be in his seventh year and second term in the Senate, where politicians go to live out their days blissfully free of any serious responsibilities. Even politicians find the Senate stifling and unproductive, so it’s an odd place for Herman Cain — man of action and scourge of the politician — to have wanted to land.
Romney avoided becoming a career politician by a similar route. He ran for the U.S. Senate in Massachusetts in 1994 and lost, ran for governor of the state in 2002 and served one term before setting his sights on higher office, and ran for the Republican nomination for president in 2008 and lost. He’s been running for president ever since. All in all, he’s made a pretty good political career out of not being a career politician.
The business experience of a Cain or a Romney is enriching, no doubt. They are more impressive for it. But what will be more relevant if Romney becomes president, his time as management consultant or his time as governor of Massachusetts? Romney was a flawed candidate in 2008 and — by most accounts — is a better candidate now. That has everything to do with having acquired more political experience by passing through the fire of running for president once before.
Distaste with the political establishment shouldn’t become distaste for the act of officeholding. Consider the figures the Tea Party admires most. The tea-party standard-bearer Jim DeMint is a former three-term congressman and is now in his second term as a senator from South Carolina. The rising star Marco Rubio spent about ten years in the Florida legislature and served as speaker of the Florida house before winning election to the U.S. Senate in 2010. If business experience were all important, the successful former Goldman Sachs executive Jon Corzine would have been a blessing to New Jersey as governor, and his politico successor — former freeholder, candidate for the legislature, and U.S. attorney Chris Christie — a flat failure.
Amid the slings of outrageous fortune, the politician learns how to inspire and persuade, how to avoid unnecessary minefields and pick his fights, when to accommodate his opponents and when to confront them, how to build a coalition and keep it together. A businessman might have similar challenges, but they aren’t played out in the public arena in the context of a balky, democratic political system that rarely moves on the basis of one man’s orders.
And the businessman’s work doesn’t depend on a philosophical commitment to a set of ideas. The best politicians, like the non-businessman Ronald Reagan, translate their principles into reality in a way that rises to statesmanship. It’s not important not to be a politician; it’s important to be a really good one.
Come on Rich, I expect to see something like this in Huffpo. You know as well as I do that he is talking about career politicians, you know, the ones who describe themselves as "public servants"
I think the story of Cinncinatus doing his duty in Rome and going back to the plow captures the essence of Cain's standpoint.
I have to agree with jfpack, Rich. Herman Cain seems to be someone motivated by his conservatism and disappointment with the current politics, rather than political career ambitions. I would bet, though I don't know for sure, that he would support term limits at all levels of government. To be sure, you have to have a gigantic ego to seek the office of President, but former CEOs tend to have those already.
Our current President is a pretty good politician, having been elected without significant accomplishment in previous roles, and look how that turned out. Herman Cain is, for the moment, a breath of fresh air for politics. He is plainspoken and unafraid of telling the truth.
Which begs the question, why exactly are we supposed to back Romney? Because a handful of powerful people tells us to? That's how we ended up where we are today.
I'll vote for a melon over Obama, but if we don't change business as usual our Republic's days are numbered.
A lot of people buy into this romantic notion of the self-made entrepreneur with unquestioned integrity who'll magically turn government into a smooth-running widget factory through the force of his or her will.
The public sector doesn't work that way and wasn't designed to by the founders.
Frank I think you need to read about the Founding Fathers - they deplored politicians. They expected "citizen politicians" to serve for a short time and then return to their private business.
I think his last line sums it pretty well. You are attempting to attain a political office. Don't just denigrate poor politicians, make sure you are a good one.
I think his last line sums it pretty well. You are attempting to attain a political office. Don't just denigrate poor politicians, make sure you are a good one.
"And the businessman’s work doesn’t depend on a philosophical commitment to a set of ideas." And a politician's does? The reason pols have a bad name is that they don't commit to a set of ideas and yet are still successful. What voters call "pols" are self-serving shape-shifters who think the electorate serves them. Perhaps what people are trying to distinguish between is politician versus statesman or true public servant.
How very "beltway" of you, Lowry, and how very disappointing. Perhaps you have spent too much time in the D.C. bubble, and you have lost your perspective.
Loyal readers here in flyover country know exactly what Cain is talking about, namely, career politicians. We are looking for citizens who treat political office as our founding fathers did, a temporary duty to be served, not a permanent job. Your argument confuses the issue of seeking office with the practice of the career politician.
The argument you make about political experience in government being desirous because it is played out in the public eye is specious. If you are so naive as to think that "politics" is only practiced in government, then you are truly clueless. I recommend you talk to a few corporate executives and ask them about the day to day politics they had to master to be successful leaders. Learning how to practice politics is something every leader in corporate America knows well.
Political experience is not the real issue here, leadership is. Being an effective leader requires competence in political skills. Being a good politician does not make one a good leader, as demonstrated by our current President.
You assert, "And the businessman’s work doesn’t depend on a philosophical commitment to a set of ideas." Nonsense! Start with a business plan and defined goals; articulated through a mission statement, and specifically spelled out in company policy and procedure, every business has a philosophical commitment to a set of ideas. For you to insinuate that a business, especially a large one such as those Cain or Romney ran, are philosophically rudderless ships is simply ignorant.
As you see it, "It’s not important not to be a politician; it’s important to be a really good one." I think you are sadly mistaken, the real truth is this: it is not important to be a politician; it's important to be a leader.
In Texas most politicians have to have another career at least. That's what happens when the legislature only meets for a few months every 2 years.
I think we would all be better off if the federal legislature was the same.
I also believe that the whole anti-career-politician movement is a result of a disconnect between the careerists and their constituency to the point the constituency feels most careerists are so detached that they no longer represent them.
Doing things like removing full-pay-for-life retirement and medical benefits from serving a single term in congress would help to lessen that divide.
Likewise, if Washington is such a horrible place, why are all these people doing all they can to move there? No one has a gun to their heads, The earth will continue to spin.
This is another disappointing aricle from Rich. I am losing confidence in his objectivity. Something wierd is happening to GOP establishment-types, like Lowry, Kristol, Barnes, Rove, Morris, Coutler, etc.
Lowry: "Amid the slings of outrageous fortune, the politician learns how to inspire and persuade...."
Huh? When? Where? Not in America in the 21st Century.
I would say, "Politicians learn to lie, deceive and spin -- and insult. Politicians are scoundrels, snakes -- people not to trust."
I would much rather have a business executive in a position of power rather than a professional politician.
As Rich argues, Neither Cain nor Romney pass credibly as a Cincinnatus character. Further Cincinatus was honored for doing a civic duty rather than seeking his fortune in politics, not for bringing his considerable plowing experience to the political sphere. As a civic leader, we must imagine he served according to the right reason that belongs to the sphere of politics rather than plowing. Politics is fundamentally a moral science. We need to be wary of the argument that would contrue moral political issues as merely administrative ones. We should beware of a Mr. Fix-It.
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