So You Want To Go Into Politics?

Tweet

What can't be applied, Snelling thinks, are certain almost unquestioned business assumptions.The mandate, for example. Once a company has approved a course of action, a manager can proceed, confident that he has a mandate. That situation almost never exists in politics, no matter what politicians claim. "There really are very few totally agreed-upon mandates for the political leader," Snelling says. "You did not win because of your stand on the issue that was the most written about in the press; you won on a collection of issues. The politician has to be very careful about assuming there is a mandate for any particular stand on any particular issue." And as with the mandate, so with planning. A manager can draw up a strategic plan and stick to it. In government, Snelling argues, that is virtually impossible: Too many other forces -- legislators, lobbyists, the press -- have a say in the shaping of policy. Not to mention public opinion. Political executives may plan like other CEOs, but the bottom line in politics, after all, is what gets counted on Election Day.

Would government be any different with more businesspeople in office? Many observers think it would be, that it would function more responsively and efficiently. Senator Boschwitz, for example, argues, "We would get to the conclusion faster, not bullshit around so much, and get a lot more done." And Governor Orr says, "You know from a business background that things are going to change, and I think this helps you understand how to react." Yet there is often a good reason why government behaves at it does. In the face of change, people (including businesspeople) often fight to hold on to what they have, and politicians must represent their interests, too, as well as those of the change-makers. It is the same with the charge of inefficiency: What looks like "bullshitting" is often a painful but necessary building of political consensus. Delay in politics usually reflects real public uncertainty on the issues.

Surely, though, wouldn't greater business participation in government make it more "probusiness"? Not necessarily; not if the current crop of entrepreneurs in government is any guide. They cover the ideological spectrum only from left (Metzenbaum) to slightly right-of-center (Boschwitz and Zschau); the rightists (Lewis Lehrman, for example) have yet to win office. But the "probusiness" line has a deeper flaw: Business isn't some monolithic interest group that politicians can easily be "for" or "against." Indeed, there is hardly an officeholder in America who isn't "probusiness" in some sense or form, they only differ on which aspect of business to support, and how. It is just here, however, that businessperson in politics may really make a difference in government, by being a knowledgeable and forceful advocate, not of "business" but of an industry or sector of which he or she has firsthand experience. Berkley Bedell, for example, who took his fishing-tackle business head-to-head with E.I. Du Pont de Nemours, has been among the strongest supporters in the House of tough antitrust policies and measures to nurture small business. Governor Robert Orr of Indiana is another case in point. Several of his projects -- Corporation for Innovation Development, for example, and Corporation for Science and Technology -- reflect his prepolitical experience as a "poor man's venture capitalist," as he puts it, and as the sometime manager of a number of troubled companies.

In the final analysis, however, there is only one test of the compatibility of the entrepreneurial and the political career: How many defeated or retired businesspeople-turned-politicos happily turn again into businesspeople? Very, very few -- if we can judge from those now in public life. It is possible that Ed Zschau will return to Silicon Valley after he gives up his house seat, as he says he will, in 1988. On the other hand, it is equally possible that he may run for the Senate. It is possible that Ray Shamie, the entrepreneur who has lost two hard-fought bids to become a conservative senator from Massachusetts, will retire to the privacy of his privately held company. On the other hand, he has arranged things back at the office so that he can keep an extremely active speaking schedule around the state. Finally, it is quite conceivable that four-time winner Richard Snelling of Vermont will lie back on his laurels and never seek office again. The fact is, though, that he is still very much in the public eye as chairman of Proposition One, a group co-chaired by former Presidents Carter and Ford that is urging Congress to cut domestic and defense spending and raise taxes to balance the budget by 1989. It is Snelling, in fact, who perhaps best sums up the point of greatest congruity between entrepreneurship and politics. "There is a personality quirk, a kind of illness in essence: a desire to be totally involved," he says. "On balance, that sickness -- if it is a sickness -- has brought me a hell of a lot more joy than pain. I tend to like it when I am deeply involved."

 PREV  1 | 2 | 3