We are asking a lot of our politicians

I have been thinking about how the primary campaign, the general election campaign and the actual job of president require 3 different skill sets and nothing in the 1st two actually shows you how they will do in the job if they win.

The Primary campaign requires one to raise money, meet people and make them believe that you will remember them at the end of the day.  You also have to convince your base that your policy beliefs are in line with theirs.  None of this is a test of managing as the candidate has people to do that for them.

The General Election campaign used to require more managing but again it is done by people the candidate hires.  Now, it is all about fund raising, convincing your money backers that you will not change your view on the policy they care the most about.  In addition there is pandering to the uninformed voters in the middle that they can have their cake and eat it too (which most definitely they cannot any more).  Once again, the candidate is the one being managed by the staff not the other way around.

Then the candidate wins the election and needs to manage the government by hiring managers who will look to him for direction and then go do it.  Nothing in the campaign tells us whether they will be good at that or not.  The President needs to manage the process of government by negotiating with the legislators to provide passing margins for the legislation we need to run the government.  Nothing to do with the campaign tells us whether they will be good at that or not.

President Obama has done well managing the government but not the legislative process.  Most of that is the GOP's fault arising from their desire to make him a one term President, but the record is the record and Mr. Obama did not push the Simpson-Bowles agenda because, in my mind, he did not want to upset his support from those on the Democratic left.

Mr. Romney would seem to be able to do this well but we cannot be sure what he stands for.  The anti-government tea party that he has acquiesced too is bound and determined to overturn many things that I believe in.  Would Mr. Romney be prepared to build coalitions with centrist Democrats and Republicans to thwart those who would do more radical things?  I doubt it because Governor Romney believes corporations should have unconstrained rights to use their money in political campaigns and any in the GOP that cooperated with compromise on revenues would have vicious primary campaigns in 2014.  So, I hope we never see a President Romney.