The Power of Words

[Chris James]

"The British Oxford Dictionaries...[chose]... "omnishambles," as their word of the year, which is defined as "a situation that has been comprehensively mismanaged, characterized by a string of blunders and miscalculations."

I knew sooner or later someone would come up with a comprehensive means of describing the way the Republican Party managed the Mitt Romney political campaign

[Merkin]

Omnishambles seems too polite to use to characterize the Republican campaign or its candidate.

[DesDownunder]

Perhaps it should be a Romney-shambles.

[dude]

Des is always there with the right word!

[Cole Parker]

I would say the mark of a great, high-level leader is to be able to recognize when something isn't working and decisively change it. It was very clear that the Romney campaign wasn't working well soon after its onset, yet he seemed unable to change its direction.

Makes you wonder how he'd have handled problems which occurred during his time in office, had he won.

C

[colinian]

Romney's career in business was as a leader and delegator, not as a doer. That's how he ran his campaign, and that shows an inability to select adequate subordinates and to manage them. It's frightening to think of how he would have run the country if he had been elected.

Colin

[Camy]

Perhaps it should be a Romney-shambles.

Classic! :)

I know you can hold Romney to account for a failed campaign, but with the vast logistics involved one person can't possibly do it without a great team. And even a great team can't be put together by one man. You have to delegate the best you can. With a business you have time to plan and grow. You can move people around if they're in the wrong positions, etc. In an election you can't - there isn't the time for finesse. Lucky us!

[Cole Parker]

I was talking to a man we were driving home from a presentation of The Book of Mormon on Sunday, and he told us the Obama started setting up campaign offices in Ohio a month after his first election. By the time this one rolled around, Obama's campaign had Ohio covered with offices and volunteers. When the Romney forces came in, the state was completely organized for Obama, and the Romney group had a complete uphill battle trying to get any purchase with the voters at all.

So no, one man can't do it, but he can lead an organization that's focused on the objective. He did that in Ohio, and Romney didn't.

He also ended up winning Ohio.

C

[Merkin]

The Obama organization was pretty well embedded here in Virginia waaay before the "start" of the campaign. Foresight would seem to be an important quality for an executive.