Reports Report

There are a number of reports out today about various things. My favorites:

1. Anyone who has ever worked in a big corporation cube farm will find this one hysterically and pathetically funny.

In the months before the 2012 election, a group of high-powered consultants and political operatives prepared a secret report for candidate Mitt Romney, explaining how he should take over and restructure the federal government should he win the presidency.

“The White House staff is similar to a holding company” read one PowerPoint slide, which would have been presented to President-elect Romney as part of an expansive briefing on the morning after Election Day. It went on to list three main divisions of the metaphorical firm: “Care & Feeding Offices,” like speechwriting, “Policy Offices,” like the National Security Council, and “Packaging & Selling Offices,” like the office of the press secretary. This was the view of the Presidency Romney would have brought with him to Washington, a glimpse of the White House that never was — and plan that never saw the light of day.

Be sure to follow the link and savor the powerpoint illustration. A hoot.

Among the recommendations for the Romney administration:

  • Corporate-style training seminars were planned for appointees and nominees before the inauguration to teach management skills.
  • A plan to restructure White House operations to suit Romney’s corporate management style, with clear deliverables.
  • Detailed flow charts delineating how information and decisions were disseminated through the administration to achieve “unity.”
  • Plans to evaluate Cabinet secretaries’s performance by “systematically assessing the efforts of their departments in contributing to [Romney’s] priorities and objectives, perhaps by a newly created ”deputy chief of staff for Cabinet oversight.”

Any past or present cube farm drones will recognize this stuff as the same inane nonsense executive staffs come up with so that the big shots can pretend they know what they are doing. It amounts to the CEOs re-arranging their deck chairs while the crew in the engine room keeps the ship going, same as always.

2. The College Republican National Committee has issued a report explaining why the GOP is losing the youth vote. A sampling:

Gay marriage: “On the ‘open-minded’ issue … [w]e will face serious difficulty so long as the issue of gay marriage remains on the table.”
Hispanics: “Latino voters … tend to think the GOP couldn’t care less about them.”
Perception of the party’s economic stance: “We’ve become the party that will pat you on your back when you make it, but won’t offer you a hand to help you get there.”
Big reason for the image problem: The “outrageous statements made by errant Republican voices.”
Words that up-for-grabs voters associate with the GOP: “The responses were brutal: closed-minded, racist, rigid, old-fashioned.”

Alex Pareene:

Now, you and I know this, but apparently Republicans still haven’t figured out that another name for “errant Republican voices” is “people honestly and clearly stating the dominant policy and philosophical positions of the modern conservative movement.” This is where they may run into some trouble. In fact, most of these unfortunate impressions people have of the party are accurate reflections of the party’s positions.

Hey, it is what it is.