2012 U.S. Presidential Election

[PanzerJaeger]

These are absolute garbage requisites. This is a bare freaking minimum. My problem isn't that you find him to be competent, but that you think competence is enough. Is it too much to ask that we, as a supposedly enlightened society, demand a truly high standard!?

You do not seem to understand what I am referring to when I say competence. Proper administration of very large organizations is very difficult and requires a unique skill set that most do not possess. That is why the private sector pays such incredibly high salaries to men like Alan Mulally. It's why Apple sucked after they fired Steve Jobs. He wasn't so much a visionary as he was a taskmaster, keeping the organization's constant focus on its goals. The Peter Principle eliminates 99.9% of those willing to attempt management at that scale, leaving competition for that .1% very intense.

IIRC, the United States government is the largest, most complex organization on earth - that or the Chinese PLA. And that is not even counting the Healthcare takeover.

IMO, the reason Obama has failed is not because of ideology, but because he has been an ineffective manager. An objective look at the Bush administration would show a similar deficiency. Both men could have been great left/right of center presidents, but they simply could not harness the federal government to effect change. Instead, the complexities of navigating Washington overwhelmed them and we were left with wasted political capital and middling results.

At this time, in our current situation, we do not need an ideological president. This isn't Roosevelt versus the monopolies. It's not Reagan versus the Great Society. The country doesn't need a hard ideological shift. We know broadly what needs to be done, and it is largely administrative. The country isn't actually in bad shape long term, we've just suffered too much ideology and too little management at the top.

Romney's unique skill set is not the bare minimum we should expect, but, frankly, more than we could ask for. The man could be making hundreds of millions of dollars in the private sector, but has decided for whatever reason - genuine patriotism, ambition, daddy-issues, or some mix of the three - to put himself through the exhausting campaign process and the personal demonization to take a shot at righting our ship. The presidency was a big income and stature boost for a community organizer turned one-term, record-less senator. He and his family's lives have been upgraded tremendously because of it. In contrast, Romney doesn't need this. He makes more than the presidential salary in less than a week. It's a service.