The former GE CEO and bestselling management guru Jack Welch boasted that he shut down corporate divisions that weren’t first or second in their markets. By that standard, Mitt Romney, who’s running for America’s CEO, still doesn’t have to shut his campaign down, even though he finished second in Iowa and now in New Hampshire. Romney gives every indication that he’d be the first president to give power-point presentations in his State of the Union speeches. But, holding a hand-held mike and without any notes, Romney was relentlessly upbeat as he recited his latest stump speech. First, he ticked off his managerial accomplishments as a business consultant, head of the Winter Olympics, and Governor of Massachusetts, declaring that he knows how to “get the job done.” Then he launched a litany of things that “Washington” said it would do but “hasn’t.” Curiously, Romney’s rhetoric was almost populist--he said he would “protect,” rather than create jobs and would work for “the middle class.”
His closing was even stranger. He warned that, if the Democrats nominate Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama, America would become like … and here the audience must have expected to hear the words “France” or “Sweden” or “Europe.” But, instead, Romney said “Michigan”--his birthplace and the site of the next primary. Will he spend the next week running against Jennifer Granholm and the UAW? Stay tuned