Earlier this week, I wrote:
Another thing [my friend] brought up is that her husband, a prominent Wall Street player, says Romney isn't a good guy. In his world, the various actors are deemed "good guys" and "not good guys," a distinction that doesn't necessarily conform fully with your ideas or my ideas about good guys. It seems to refer more to certain implicit rules on the proper ways to grab everything you can, and how you're supposed to relate to other people in your dealmaking. The good guy dealmakers are people you can trust; you can't trust someone who isn't a good guy. Romney is, apparently, regarded as not-a-good-guy.
Today, in WaPo, William D. Cohan, a self-described former Wall Street deal consultant, writes about his experience with Bain during Romney's active tenure. Cohan describes bidding tactics that led him to stop including Bain in deals. I think what he describes is exactly what is meant by not being a good guy in the eyes of Wall Streeters.
Check out the WaPo article for details of Cohan's criticism of Bain's tactics.
I realize that an outsider might say Bain played by the formal rules and served the best interests of its investors. And reading the WaPo comments, it's evident that there isn't much sympathy for Cohan's point of view. Nonetheless, I think there is something to what Cohan is saying as he discusses certain basic values--a kind of dealmaker's honor or good faith that is expected, even among people who are all working to grab everything they can. These are all tough characters who can take care of themselves in a competitive, high financial stakes world, but they do depend upon relationships of mutual trust to conduct business. And as it is true in many situations, there are both formal and informal rules of conduct.
Why does this matter in the discussion of Romney? Well, he keeps stressing his successful business experience as his chief qualification, so it's relevant to ask how he operated as a business person. What were his values?
This leads me to wonder how Romney would deal with international allies and, perhaps more importantly, how he would handle the painstaking process of building trust between the United States and other nations when relationships are strained. Would he dupe negotiators instead of bargaining in good faith? There is such a thing as tough bargaining, and then there is bargaining that leaves others feeling as if they've been had. What happens the next time he wants to sit down at the table with negotiators who feel they were duped? Will they pull a Cohan and say, thanks but no thanks? We're not interested in conversation.
And on the domestic side, we're also left to wonder who Romney really is. Is he the moderate Republican who served as governor of Massachusetts, is he a radical conservative, or is he a man who will say anything to get his hands on what he wants, in this case the American presidency?
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