If his past actions in Massachusetts concerning veterans affairs are an indication, Gov. Romney would certainly opt to improve pay and benefits to attract more military recruits. Romney wants $30-$40 billion more annually for defense and some of that would be earmarked to increase recruiting success.
When Gov. Romney speaks of research in technology for alternative energy sources to gain energy independence, bear in mind this is a man who spent 25 years scrutinizing the business plans of people to separate the nonsense from the feasible and had a stellar track record making the right choice. He always insists on hard data to back up claims and refuses to make a decision if everyone is telling him the same thing. Romney insists that his advisors find people who disagree with them to state the opposing viewpoint before he decides an issue.
Kum Ba Yah in foreign policy is not likely to fly with Romney. Tangible and verifiable benchmarks using real data to measure progress are the expected norm in the world of private business. Romney applied that methodology to government in Massachusetts. Failure to achieve the desired result on schedule is likely to quickly elicit a review of the policy for changes that may be needed. Slackers and big talkers don't last long if they can't produce results.
I think we should forward this to Joe Klein of Time magazine and see if he still thinks Romney is all fluff and no substance.
You're welcome! Now, I know this topic is only fifteen posts long, but its the first one I've seen that had "Mitt Romney" in the title, that did not turn into a theological debate!
I agree with Romney in what it would take to expand the military, if there's one thing the Walter Reed scandal showed, its that the supposed 'watchdogs' whose job it is to be looking out after our troops are not doing their job. I understand that some military families are still eligible for food stamps, and this is a disgrace.
I also agree that Romney did a great job as a venture capitalist. But the process under which government contracts are awarded is nothing like what he would have used at his firm. Perhaps it would be a great campaign issue for him to actively seek to change that mechanism. We all remember the $600 toilet seats of the mid-1980's, and the crackpot schemes that were financed when AIDS research had money to burn. Nobody wants a return to that.
While the international conference idea sounds good in rhetoric, I just don't see how it is going to work on a practical level. There are way too many gimmie-gimmies out there, who will try to screw up any legitimate progress. In my view, that's how the United Nations went off the track. As an organization set up to deal with the aftermath of WWII, it seemed to work, but as the Cold War gave an opportunity for unaligned Third World nations the chance to play the West and the Soviets off against each other, the UN's many agencies lost effectiveness. Oil for Food, er, Fraud, was one recent example.
Who's to say that the same thing won't occur with the oil-money-rich sheikdoms of Islamunism buying off the developing nations, by filling the Swiss bank accounts of their tinpot dictators? A new Cold War is not the way to defeat Islamofascism, we just had to wait out the Soviet Union for a few generations, the Muslim empire has lasted in some form or other for over a millenium. They have proven that they are the ones with the staying power in a siege.
Nope, it's got to be an old-fashioned Hot War, complete with a do-whatever-it-takes attitude that this country hasn't seen since WWII.