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Business Strategies Don’t Often Translate In Politics

We’ve had a few occasions to mention Jack Welch here at the Pundit.  You can see those pieces here, here, here and here. He is the former CEO of General Electric and, with his wife, Suzy Welch, who is the former editor of the Harvard Business Review, the two have launched a new column for Reuters.

It seems that Jack is a big Romney supporter, but Jack and Suzy’s children support Ron Paul. In their first column for Reuters, the Welches suggest that the Republican leadership and the eventual nominee need to treat Ron Paul in the way a business treats the firing of a top executive.

As the Welches note:  “In business, firing someone incorrectly is a disaster that can haunt you for years. Same in politics.”

The Welches go on to urge accommodating Ron Paul with whatever he wants, such as a prominent speaking role at the Republican National Convention.

It is a conceit of businesspeople that government and politics are just like business, that business management strategies can be applied and that such strategies will lead to success.

This is not typically true. If you are interested in this line of thought, we dealt with this dynamic in a piece the Pundit wrote for The Weekly Standard, published under the title Ron Paul – and the ‘Pink Slip’.

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