Obama was, in political circles, a “big name”, but I don’t think it’s reasonable at all to call him (as far as national Presidential politics are concerned) a “big name” and a “celebrity candidate” before he started his campaign, considering that half the country had no idea who he was.
I don’t get it.
…right into the ground, on more than one occasion.
No, you trash his background as a guy who wants to do away the same social safety net that he took advantage of as a child. 
Rich Lowry wrote a nice little review of the 2008 Vice-Presidential debate between Biden and Palin for National Review. It was a little bit fanboyish. Okay, a lot fanboyish. With mentions of the starbursts that Lowry felt listening to Snookie of the Northwoods.
Bingo. Clift’s piece reminded me of that - a triumph of infatuation over reporting.
Here’s a link to the Iowa Republican’s after-action report on the Freedumb Summit.
Short version: their two commentators thought Scott Walker was the big winner. Place and show, in their opinion, went to Ted Cruz and…Carly Fiorina. (Yeah, I’m as gobsmacked as you are about that last one.)
The part that I liked best was this:
Underlining mine. Clearly they have, um, interesting ideas of what would constitute an ‘accomplishment.’ Sounds more like the sort of thing a terrorist should call the radio station and claim credit for.
Ah, thanks.
And I agree, Trump’s business record - including several flops and bankruptcies - would not easily withstand Presidential-level press scrutiny.
Plus … his hair.
C’mon, really. I know you’ve had Presidents who wore wigs, but a comb-over, looking like a cat asleep on his head?
No. Just … no.
I’m hoping yes. Picture all those outdoor rallies with big gusts of wind.
How many times has that ass-clown pretended he is going to run? It’s just a tired act to keep his name in the press so he can promote his shitty tv show or his shitty casino. And the press falls for it every time.
Ben Carson reveals that if you force a Christian to bake a wedding cake for a same sex couple, they just might put poison in it:
Actually, no. Sometimes he wins, sometimes he loses. He has had some pretty notable failures.
Even if he was a great businessman, what relevance is that? Running a business is nothing like running a country, just as managing your family budget is nothing like the managing the federal budget. Who was the last successful businessman to become president? We’ve had some try, like Romney and Perot. We’ve had some failures run and win, like Lincoln and Truman. Seems to me that business experience is completely unrelated to presidential qualifications.
I think it’s more that voters actually dislike the successful businessmen more than the failed businessmen. GWB tried his hand at a variety of things and failed. THe end result was that he was the candidate voters would prefer to have a beer with. Romney was a success, and he was out of touch. Fiorina is arguably a failure, and the crowd in Iowa related to her in a way that they never did with Romney. And this is a Republican group that should be celebrating business success.
It’s just hard to judge whether businessmen make good government executives when a large number of voters see the successful ones as fat cats and the failures as people more like them.
I will note that whenever there’s a crisis, it does seem like Presidents love to call on successful businessmen for advice.
Anyway, the best chance we have for an insanely rich and successful businessman to be President is Mark Warner. No Republican is going to pull off that feat.
Ah yes. Nothing says “love your neighbor” like poison.
Whether Romney was a successful businessman depends on how you define success. Certainly, he prospered from his business ventures, but we don’t want a President that makes himself prosper; we want a President who makes the nation prosper. How did Romney’s companies fare under his leadership?
Here’s Jon Stewart on the Freedom Summit. Good stuff: http://thedailyshow.cc.com/videos/k42ti0/democalypse-2016---fox-news-correspondent-auditions
More often than not, they became more profitable. The problem is that making a failing business profitable often involves reducing costs. Which doesn’t translate well when you’re running for elected office. Trump likes firing people too. But in both cases, sure, they had failures too. How many successful businessmen haven’t failed? That’s how they became successful businessmen!
It’s true that running business and the government aren’t the same. They have different goals. But some things are the same. There should be a focus on the customer. Money should be spent efficiently. Organizations should have clear structure and people should be accountable up and down the chain for decisions they make. Things that don’t work well should be eliminated. These precepts are true whether one is running a for profit or non profit or government agency.
That’s one of the things that is different. Companies focus on the shareholder, not the customer. To the extent that they do focus on the customer, it’s only because they’ve decided that that’s what will be best for the shareholder.
Well, in this context, the shareholder is the voter and the customer is the taxpayer.
A business that doesn’t focus on making customers happy won’t stay in business once they encounter competition that does.
The government, on the other hand, focuses on itself. That’s pretty much what government unions are, the government looking out for its own interests, in opposition to the public.
Yes, that’s exactly what government unions are, except in every conceivable way.