Here’s to the Losers [Reader Post]

Crossposted from Brothers Bob Blog

I recently attended a lunch lecture called “Leadership Lessons Learned at West Point.” The retired officer who spoke gave a good speech, if not the most original. He even admitted at he very start there there would probably not be any new material that everyone in the room hadn’t heard before. But he had some good anecdotes and lessons, and one point that stuck with me. He talked a bit about losing, and the importance of it. He asked the group what the most important lesson of losing was and the answer was something to the effect of “acknowledging that you lost.” The important part was realizing that you had not achieved what you had wanted and that you learned from it. That line got me thinking about our current presidential candidates and how it applies to some of the top names that we’re hearing about right now in the 2012 – Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, and of course, Barack Obama.

First I want to go back on the 2000 Presidential election, and take a quick look at George W. Bush and Al Gore. At the age of 30 George Bush was arrested for drunk driving, and he later founded and led his oil company, Arbusto Energy, Inc, to the verge of collapse before being bought out. Bush would go on to become the president of the United States, and facing early challenges of the dot.com recession and 9/11, went on to lead the country to years of economic growth, low unemployment and kept the country safe from further attacks. Al Gore, a divinity school dropout and law school dropout, narrowly lost a fiercely contested 2000 election, and .today is making a fortune in the green energy industry.

I left a lot of detail out of the last paragraph, but please don’t get hung up on that. The little that I wrote could fire up lengthy arguments from the supporters and critics of each, but that’s not the point. What I’m trying stress is the fact that both Bush and Gore have tasted defeat, and both went on to success. I think that however judgementally or grudgingly, almost everyone can agree on this point.

Which brings us to our current crop of candidates. First, there’s Gingrich. He started off having to answer for the skeleton in his closet of the global warming ad that he filmed with Nancy Pelosi. And he did a fair job of explaining his position, but he still missed the mark. His point of making the ads was to ensure that conservative voices were at the table and being heard, a point where many would agree. His biggest sin in this was basically quoting a liberal talking point of how America needs to take action to address climate change – a better choice of words would have been to say that we need to look at all possible sources of energy or to review our energy policy. Next he went on the Sunday talk show circuit and referred to Ryan Plan as “Right Wing Social Engineering” and “Extremist”. These are excellent positions to hold in seeking the nomination, but Barack Obama most likely has the Democratic nomination sealed (and I can’t recall the pundit or I’d be citing that person. If you know who said this please mention it in the comments). Now Newt has tasted defeat, as the inevitable political pendulum took him and the Republicans out of power in 1998, but memories of the Gingrich revolution in 1994 and his success working the writer/news show circuit left him forgetful of the lessons learned from losing power. He’s certainly been given the opportunity to learn them now.

Next is Mitt Romney. He’s established himself as a leader and a man who can turn around failing ventures. He demonstrated his ability as a leader in making a fortune at the helm of Bain Capital, and more famously, turning around the Salt Lake City Olympics. He even managed to win the governorship as a Republican in the blue land of Massachusetts. He may have lost in he 2008 Republican primary, but it’s hard to consider a true failure something as unusual as a presidential campaign. Of course, he has one glaring failure in Romneycare. As something that President Obama likes to point out served as a model for Obamacare, Romney introduced the individual health insurance mandate. Predictably, his mandate has become far more expensive for the state than promised, has led smaller companies to drop their health care coverage for its employees, and Romney might have been forgiven for attempting to move to a single payer system even though history has proven that it doesn’t work. At this stage all that Romney has to admit is that his health care system was a bad idea. Unfortunately, Romney has never truly failed in anything, and has never had to say those words, “I was wrong.” It’s never too late to start, though. All that Romney needs to say is something to the effect of, “I had the guts to try something risky at a state level that we now know was a bad idea, and I admit it. Now, does the president have the courage and integrity to do the same and repeal Obamacare?” Watch that one sail out of the park, and congratulations for manning up, Mr. Frontrunner.

Of course, this brings us to President Obama. This is someone who did an outstanding job of working our system and our media to drift upwards, and excluding his current job (some times), without taking on any real responsibility and with no real accomplishments. Yes, he organized some community, although I’m still waiting for someone to explain how getting a few people registered to vote equates leadership. His other big accomplishment? He was skilled at running campaigns, but can’t seem to win one honestly. Whether it’s via voter disenfranchisement, having the sealed divorce records of Blair Hull orJack Ryan released in the days leading up to an election , or willingly accepting illegal campaign money from foreign donors, our president can not seem to win a fair election. And if you think that he won the 2008 presidential election on his merits, he could not have accomplished it without being carried by the mainstream media. Whether it was overlooking his lack of leadership experience, his philosophies being molded by anti-American Marxists, lack of accomplishments, his love for voting “Present” in the US Senate to avoid having any accountability for his actions, or burying his statements about his intent to destroy our energy sector, the press did everything in its power to throw a coat of bright, fresh hope and change paint over old shed built on failed philosophies and no substance. Had our press covered Obama honestly from day one, then today we would most likely have in the White House today….. President Hilary Clinton. There’s a sobering thought for a conservative that there would be anything in the world that would make Hilary as president look good by comparison.

But I digress. The point is that our president’s career of drifting upward and never having tasted defeat showed up clearly when he suffered his first serious defeat – the January 2010 elections. To briefly recap, at that time rage against the Democrat party and its bizarre notions that running up ruinous debt and destroying our health care industry were a good idea, their party was facing a serious backlash. In the elections, the Democrats lost:

• The governorship of Virginia, a key battleground state, and one sitting in the president’s back yard from DC
• The governorship of New Jersey, where having grown up I can attest that the Democrats could run Mickey Mouse for Governor and he could win as long as there was a (D) after his name. And yes, I’m quite aware of Chris Christie, but it take some spectacular misrule by the Dems to allow a Republican to win that seat.
• Ted Kennedy’s vacant Senate seat. Yes, the seat belonging to the man who could title John Kerry “The less liberal Senator from his state” went Republican. True, Walker is a bit of a RINO, but a Republican nonetheless.

The Democrats got their clocks cleaned, and I was curious to see how our president might react. Although his first year in office left me completely underwhelmed, it was at this point that I realized that he lacked the capacity to ever grow into a leader. How did he react? Maybe announce that he’s bringing a new team of economic advisors who actually have real world experience? Maybe say he’s going to read a book an management skills, on leadership, or maybe even remedial economics? Maybe take some time for serious introspection and look at everything that he’s done wrong in hopes of changing into the president the we were promised he would be?

Sadly, no – the president went back to his happy place. Soon after the January defeats he appeared on one of the evening news casts (60 Minutes, I believe) and when asked about the 2010 elections he said something to the effect of the recent election being part of the wave of change that put him into office. That’s right, in Obama’s mind a complete rejection of his party is actually about the people’s love for him. The frightening part is that I think he might have even believed it himself. Obama also, in his State of the Union Address, used a favorite tactic of his, that is to trash someone in the room who is not able to respond and attack the Supreme Court. Of course, this display only showed his pettiness and ignorance of the law, which the press dutifully reported as John Roberts showing disrespect for silently mouthing, “That’s not true”. The third action of the president’s that I recall was shortly afterward appearing court side at a Georgetown Hoyas basketball game to do a few minutes of commentary with the announcers.Yep, the economy is reeling and the voters were showing serious doubts about Obama and his party’s ability to lead, so the antidote is to go on TV and look cool palling around with the announcers over some college hoops. What do all of these have in common? He was behaving like Senator Obama, the presidential candidate, as opposed to being a president. And sadly, that is the leadership we now have. The health care debacle, overregulation, incoherent energy policy, insane levels of spending, allowing Big Labor to dictate business decisions – in our president’s mind the only possible reason any of these can be failing is that we’re not seeing enough of them, not because they,or he, could possibly be wrong.

This is what we get when we put someone in office who has never been tested and with no real experience behind him. Turning to a loser may not be the best idea for tactical ideas, but at least lessons can be drawn on what went wrong and what pieces went right on the path to defeat. To use an analogy, if you knew a young man who was looking for advice on how to meet, and retain a girlfriend, who would you point him to? Ideally you look for someone who has had successful relationships, but if your only two choices are a guy who continuously asks out and strikes out or one who believes he’s Rico Suave because his only experience with women is via prostitutes that someone else paid for, which would you choose? I know that’s a bit of a crass example but I think it conveys my point.

I’m reminded of a line from one episode of the X-Men cartoons from the early 90’s where Cable was lamenting seeing the true colors of some of his past associates, “I don’t mind being wrong, as long as I can correct my mistakes.”

Hopefully the American people will do the same in 2012.

Brother Bob

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