Washington, July 2 -- George W. Bush, the nation's first MBA president, isn't making life easy for his 1975 Harvard Business School classmate, Mitt Romney.
Unlike Bush, whose career as a Texas oilman was a bust, fellow Republican Romney racked up sterling successes in business. Still, taking advantage of those credentials as he runs for president is proving difficult in the wake of Bush administration management failures on issues ranging from Hurricane Katrina to postwar Iraq.
Romney, 60, must walk a fine line, touting his ability to restore his party's reputation for competence without criticizing Bush, who still commands the loyalty of many hard- core Republicans.
``It's a legitimate yet dangerous opportunity for Romney because you have to handle it so deftly,'' says Richard Bond, former chairman of the Republican National Committee. ``If you say, `I'm a better manager,' you're taking a backhanded swipe at the Bush administration.''
Romney's business record is unmatched by the current crop of leading candidates. At Bain & Co., a Boston management- consulting firm, he founded Bain Capital LLC in 1984, which has grown into one of the nation's five largest private-equity firms. Bain currently has $40 billion in assets under management, according to its Web site.
Reputation
During his stint at Bain Capital, Romney built a reputation for investing in companies such as Framingham, Massachusetts- based Staples Inc.; Domino's Pizza Inc., based in Ann Arbor, Michigan; and The Sports Authority, based in Englewood, Colorado. In 1990, he returned to Bain & Co. when it was on the verge of bankruptcy to oversee a restructuring that helped save the firm.
``He's able to focus on the areas that matter,'' says Bob White, who co-founded Bain Capital with Romney. What he's ``really good'' at is ``executing and making sure there are milestones and benchmarks.''
Parachuted into the leadership of a drifting U.S. Olympic Committee in 1999, he turned the 2002 games in Salt Lake City, Utah, into a success. As Massachusetts governor from 2003 to 2007, he erased a budget deficit without raising taxes.
The Romney campaign is grappling with how much emphasis to put on his business record. Some aides worry he could be labeled a mere technocrat.
Hammered
Romney may also be held in check by memories of his 1994 bid to unseat Massachusetts Senator Edward Kennedy. In that race, he highlighted his role as a corporate-turnaround artist, only to be hammered by Kennedy for the loss of hundreds of jobs at a Bain-controlled paper plant.
While Romney has questioned the administration's Iraq strategy, he has refrained from an overt assault on Bush's policymaking. He has yet to mention in advertising spots his former company or any of the corporations he helped. ``Competence'' isn't a word he uses often on the stump.
According to Alex Castellanos, Romney's media strategist, future ads will give greater prominence to the candidate's business background. ``I don't think we should hide Mitt Romney's light under a bushel,'' he says. The challenge is doing it without criticizing Bush, 60: ``As long as you keep the focus on the future you stay out of that trap.''
Crowded Field
If Romney can find a way to talk up his business credentials, it could be a way to distinguish himself in a crowded field of Republicans whose policy prescriptions don't vary much.
``Since World War II, Republicans have always prided themselves and presented themselves as the party of good management,'' says Lee Edwards, a scholar at the Heritage Foundation, a Washington-based research organization that backs limited government.
Respondents in a May 17-20 survey by Zogby International clearly valued this trait: 82 percent said strong management skills are a prerequisite for the next U.S. president.
Their focus may reflect the fact that many Americans see Bush's inability to get aid to Katrina victims as symbolic of a larger inability to run the government.
``One of the biggest failures of the Bush administration, domestically with Katrina and internationally with Iraq, is the sense of utter incompetence,'' says Julian Zelizer, a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University in New Jersey.
Major Setbacks
The competence issue hangs over every major setback of Bush's tenure, from Iraq to shoddy treatment facilities for wounded soldiers at Washington's Walter Reed Army Medical Center to the abortive nomination of former White House counsel Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court.
These miscues have led some Republicans such as former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, 64, to call for a new ``performance culture'' to rebuild trust in Republicans' handling of the government.
Voters are ``upset about execution'' under Bush, says David Frum, a former White House speechwriter for him who isn't affiliated with any 2008 campaign. ``This is one of Romney's strong suits.'' Frum describes Romney as a manager who's ``legendary for his very methodical, orderly process.''
The public hasn't gotten this message yet, according to the Zogby poll. Asked which candidate is the best manager, Romney scored only 7 percent, compared with 25 percent for a Republican rival, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, and 23 percent for Democratic Senator Hillary Clinton of New York.
Management Expertise
Romney's advisers say his management expertise outstrips those competitors. ``Everyone around him thinks this is a highly important reason he should be president,'' says Vin Weber, Romney's policy chairman and a former Republican representative from Minnesota. ``You have to figure out how to market it,'' he says. ``It's one of his greatest advantages.''
Still, putting too much stress on managerial ability can take a candidate only so far. In 1988, another former Massachusetts governor ran on his role in creating a Bay State economic ``miracle'' and declared the election was about ``competence, not ideology.'' Michael Dukakis wound up losing to George H.W. Bush in a landslide.
Presidential scholars also caution that being a whiz-bang manager is far down the list of essential presidential skills, noting that the success of America's top leaders relies far more on ideas, energy and communication skills than the ability to follow a flow chart.
When Americans ``think of Franklin Roosevelt or John F. Kennedy, they weren't thinking about managerial competence,'' says Stephen Hess, a historian at the Brookings Institution, a Washington research organization. ``That's not the history of the presidency.''
