Half Sigma backs Romney
http://www.halfsigma.com/2008/01/mitt-ro…
After evaluating the pros and cons in the post below, I’m officially supporting Mitt Romney. I think that McCain is too old and not smart enough to be president. Mitt, who had high grades at Harvard Law and Harvard Business School, is extremely smart. Mitt also gets credit for his steady personality, while McCain is rumored to be moody and temperamental.
I am not impressed by McCain’s military experience. I worked for the army as a civilian, and it was the most poorly managed organization I ever worked for. Romney, on the other hand, has the proven capacity to run large organizations.
Well said.
January 31st, 2008 at 12:40 pm
While I agree with supporting Romney over McCain, I am not impressed with Half Sigma’s reasons for doing so.
“McCain is too old…” is not really a valid point. He’s in good health, at least as fit as Ronald Reagan was.
“Not smart enough…” — can this be substantiated? What’s his IQ?
“army… was the most poorly managed organization I ever worked for…” — I was unaware that McCain managed the Army. Oh, wait, he didn’t. Then this point is a complete non sequitur.
No, the real reasons for being against McCain are his stances on immigration, campaign reform, and tax cuts. He’s practically a liberal in Republican clothing. Really, there’s no need to invent any other reasons to not like McCain.
January 31st, 2008 at 4:33 pm
it was the most poorly managed organization I ever worked for.
I’m not sure when he worked for the Army .. but generally he’s right.
The military is optimized to break things and hurt people. When it’s not actually doing this – and that was most of the time before between 1973 and 2001 – it’s incredibly inefficient.
The reason is that it’s really tough to run a lean military optimized for peacetime and then change stuff around in the span of a few months so you can destroy Iraqi mechanized armies with minimal waste. Or at least minimal waste on our side.
I was in a support role in 1991 and it’s amazing how many wasted cycles .. suddenly were not when we had to pack up people and gear and move them halfway around the world.
Did 3D FSSG need a whole bunch of desert camo in 1990? Going there wasn’t our mission so you might think that the cubic set aside in the warehouses were wasted space.. But when we were tasked to send people the guys who went were pretty happy to be able to draw the gear they needed.
Likewise in 1990 3D FSSG didn’t need two DFASCs – mainframes in a trailer – but when 1st and 2nd FSSG found theirs were breaking down (AC issues) we were able to ship them ours on a day’s notice- one we didn’t need and one we wouldn’t need.
Sorry for the rant – ignorance irks me.
February 2nd, 2008 at 7:16 pm
McCain was a manager (aka “officer”) in the navy. I have no reason to think that the navy is run any better than the army. Most Lieutenant Colonels and Colonels (the level McCain worked at) were uninspiring bureaucrats and certainly not President material.
I also knew an ex-fighter pilot. Nice guy, but also not someone I imagine as President of the United States.
February 2nd, 2008 at 9:54 pm
McCain retired as a Captain (Colonel in Army speak). Officers at that level command and set policy for their units but unless they’re exception political and staff weenies they rarely change the character or culture of the entire shooting mess.
Not liking the man because he was a cog in a machine is kinda dumb.