Management consultants this morning, and Bain & Company's office in Washington in particular, must be ruing the announcement yesterday lunchtime saw by Mitt Romney of his intention to suspend his effort to be selected as the Republican nominee in the forthcoming 2008 US Presidential election.
Suspension is a technical term, in effect retirement, whereby Romney does not lose the electoral college votes achieved so far should he wish to reenter the campaign.
Pundits suggested reasons for Romney's withdrawal as including - an obsession with PowerPoint slides and data, not wanting to be seen as "beating up the old Guy" (John McCain) who would likely win anyway, and Romney's religion. Aides also dropped the usual rumours about wanting to position himself for the future.
Whitehall Village sees it slightly differently. McCain has been reliant on splitting the opposition vote between Romney and Huckabee to beat them both and we suspect two issues to underpin Romney's withdrawal;
1. Huckabee won more states on Super Tuesday than Romney anticipated - splitting the religious vote and thereby denying him the chance to be a serious contender for the nomination.
2. The data will have shown a poor Return On Investment (ROI) in terms of expenditure per vote on the campaign (Any "Bainies" on the campaign team will be keeping a low profile I am certain). See our earlier posting for further details. The Bain website today leads by informing prospective Clients that Bain enables them to outperform the market by 4 to 1. Not in political electioneering obviously...
Mike Huckabee's comment immediately after Super Tuesday seems eerily prescient that, "It's now a two man race - and I am one of them".
No comments:
Post a Comment