Do Businessmen Make Good Political Leaders?

Pete Aguilar, Steve Israel's idea of a successful "businessman"

All the corrupt, vehemently anti-democracy/anti-grassroots Beltway committees -- on both sides of the partisan divide--revel in self-funders. They live for millionaires candidates, although they tend to refer to them as "businessmen," not multimillionaires. Before I retired and became a full-time blogger, I was a businessman. I started my own record company and eventually became president of one of the biggest international record companies in the world. I know the business world and what makes someone a successful businessman might make them a horrendous politician. CEOs, for example, are accustomed to being obeyed, not negotiated with. On the other hand, I've run into folks in government service and at non-profits who seem extraordinarily lame and incompetent. Upshot: it's all about the individual, not the category... or provenance.

This morning, The Hill ran a story, GOP Bets On Execs To Help Retake Senate. That's fairly natural for Republicans and a far from unnatural for Democrats as well.

A half-dozen top GOP candidates boast records as wealthy businessmen and entrepreneurs. If voters decide they’re successful job creators on Election Day, Republicans could be on their way to the six seats they need to win the upper chamber.

But if Democrats can successfully tar the candidates as out-of-touch millionaires, as they’ve done in a number of past campaigns, their profiles could cost the GOP dearly.

Looking for candidates with a “job creator” pedigree is nothing new for either party, but for Republicans it’s been especially risky in recent years.

Republicans argue this year’s crop of Senate recruits is better than the several self-funding businessmen who crashed and burned in 2012. But they acknowledge that whether their candidates’ resumes hold up to scrutiny could determine who holds Senate control next year.

“ ‘Businessman problem solver’ good, ‘wealthy businessman out of touch with workers’ bad,” one national GOP strategist wryly noted.

…Private-sector candidates from both parties have some inherent strengths. Most aren’t tainted by the “career politician label” and can bill themselves as outsiders. They also don’t have to worry about past votes, and if they’re wealthy enough, they can help fund their own campaigns. Tillis, Jacobs and Perdue have already given their campaign hundreds of thousands of dollars, while Land has spent $1.6 million of the $5 million she’s promised to personally invest.

But there are a number of pitfalls. Businessmen often have to deal with any lawsuits their companies have faced, any employees they’ve laid off and any other unpopular moves their companies made.

“This is the classic Mitt Romney problem. There is a ton of information out there in the public sphere, especially for candidates who made their fortunes through publicly traded corporations. There are SEC filings, court records, and various other reports you can dig up ... and frequently the best business decision isn’t necessarily the best political decision,” said Matt Thornton, a Democratic strategist. “The more candidates are going to rely on their business acumen as a qualifier for office, the more they’ll have to defend everything that goes along with their business experience.”

Thornton was a senior strategist for the Democratic opposition research firm American Bridge when the group helped craft the line of attack that helped define the GOP presidential nominee and other candidates’ business backgrounds in 2012. He said he’d almost always rather face a candidate with an extensive business record and no political record than the opposite.

“The problem with many of these businessmen and self-funders is everything that comes out about them is new and potentially controversial,” he said. “There could be surprises around every corner.”

Some Republicans privately agree.

“There is absolutely a tradeoff,” said one GOP strategist who’s worked for a number of self-funding GOP businessmen but asked not to be named because of his current client list.

“By and large these guys are first-time candidates who don’t have that voting record and aren’t tainted as a politician,” he continued. “But a successful businessperson in this country has likely been sued, they could very well have had personnel issues, there could be government agency issues. It’s a whole area of potential problems that rank-and-file citizens who run for office don’t have to confront.”

…“Millionaire Republican Senate candidates who dump their fortunes into campaigns in an attempt to cover up their reckless and irresponsible agendas in order to buy Senate seats will inevitably fail just like Linda McMahon, Rick Berg, Jon Bruner and others did last cycle,” said Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee spokesman Justin Barasky.

Meanwhile, DCCC Chairman Steve Israel has put 23 Democratic candidates on his Jumpstart list this cycle. Most of them are abysmal candidates and many have no chance to win whatsoever. Of the 23, almost half go to considerable pains to hide the specifics of their political agendas but instead go all out in describing themselves as "businessmen." The Jumpstart candidates who aren't walking around with big neon signs that say "businessman" on their heads are the candidates who are well known public servants, some good, like Tompkins County legislator Martha Robertson and some putrid, like ex-Ohio legislator Jennifer Garrison. None of these have "businessman" claims on their websites: Aimee Belgard (NJ), Erin Bilbray (NV), Ann Callis (IL), Jerry Cannon (MI), Gwen Graham (FL), Patrick Henry Hayes (AR), Rocky Lara (NM), John Lewis (MT), Domenic Recchia (NY), Andrew Romanoff (CO), James Lee Witt (AR) or the two former spies Israel dug up, Bobbie McKenzie (MI) or Kevin Strouse (PA). These claim to be businessmen and businesswomen:

• Pete Aguilar, a small time career politician and former corrupt savings and loan lobbyist, describes himself as "a small business owner," but doesn't mention what business he owns. He's supposedly some kind of "consultant" for something but that's all very mysterious and hush-hush.

• Staci Appel, a former state legislator who was defeated for reelection and then worked as a financial consultant- "I’m running for Congress because I’m exhausted with Washington and career politicians not working for Iowans. As a mother and businesswoman, I will bring Iowa common sense to Washington, come up with practical solutions and get Congress working together to get things done."

• Pam Byrnes, a former state legislator, describes herself as "a mother, grandmother, lawyer, and small business owner."

• Michael Eggman: "Michael  farms 40 acres of almonds and manages over 1,000 beehives."

• Sean Eldridge, a gay rights advocate who married Facebook billionaire Chris Hughes, describes himself as "the president of Kingston-based Hudson River Ventures, an investment company that has created local jobs and grown small businesses throughout our region, including family- and veteran-owned companies. Hudson River Ventures has helped grow more than a dozen local businesses, including Bread Alone, Prohibition Distillery, Gigi Hudson Valley, and many others."

• Jennifer Garrison, a right-wing anti-gay activist and former state legislator describes her very remunerative legal business of enabling fracking in Ohio as serving "her community and to create jobs in Southeastern Ohio. She began the Southeastern Ohio Landowners’ Association (SEOLA), where she has successfully negotiated over $200 million of shale oil and gas mineral leases, providing landowners with some of the best financial outcomes, while also protecting their land and water. She is also a member of the Ohio Oil and Gas Association and the Washington County Ohio Shale Task Force."

• Suzanne Patrick, a corporate consulting business executive for investment banks looking to profit off military contracts, describes herself as "a business executive well-versed in global economies" who "understands that the military families and facilities of Virginia’s 2nd Congressional district are the backbone of the local economy as well as the nation’s fighting forces."

• Amanda Renteria claims on her campaign website that "in her first job out of college, Amanda gained nearly four years of valuable private sector work experience as an investment analyst in Los Angeles. In this role, she gained a deep understanding of how our economy works, how government policies can help or hinder job creation, and how families can best manage their finances."

• Martha Robertson, a well-known and distinguished public servant in Tompkins County, NY, felt she needed to show some business bona fides too: "I literally grew up in a small business. My parents had a flower shop and nursery, with the house right next to the shop. We were open 24/7, so if a customer came in, someone had to jump up to go wait on them. My brothers, sister, and I helped sell the trees, water the shrubs, and make the bows in the flower shop. It was called Liberty Nursery, and that’s where I learned about hard work."

• Alex Sink might be best known for her term as Florida's CFO but her website emphasizes her time as a businesswoman: "Alex’s commitment to solving problems is driven by her 25 years of real world experience as one of Florida’s business leaders, culminating in her leadership of one of Florida’s largest banks… Driven by her results-oriented experience in the private sector, as CFO Alex also spearheaded commonsense initiatives that saved millions of dollars for taxpayers by cutting red tape, introducing performance metrics to hold government accountable for waste and abuse and creating the right fiscal environment for businesses to create jobs."

Steve Israel has never been successful at anything in his entire miserable life beyond sucking up to the rich and powerful and thriving on their table scraps. He has no clue how to run the DCCC so, of course, just mimics, badly, with the lame Republicans do.