by Lee Iacocca
Hillary Clinton is a smart woman, and even her detractors acknowledge that she has shown COMMON SENSE and COMPETENCE in the Senate. I have no doubt that we’re ready to have a woman President. But is Hillary the one? There is always a question mark about CHARACTER and CONVICTION hanging over her head. She’s a bit too slick and politically expedient, and her movement to the center leaves her without a strong political identity. Her style of COMMUNICATION is always very careful, as if she’s weighing the pros and cons of each word she utters. People often ask, “What does Hillary believe in?” I don’t think that question has been answered.
Hillary has a huge team of advisors, with a core of loyalists that have been with her for ten to fifteen years. Her number one teammate is Bill Clinton, and maybe that’s Hillary’s biggest problem. Is America ready for the weird scenario of having the Clintons back in the White House in a reversal of roles? I try to be open-minded, but that’s a lot to get your head around. Would a Hillary Clinton presidency distract from the focus on the important issues we have to face? The media needs to press Hillary on why she wants to be President, and why she thinks she’s the best person for the job.
Joe Biden is a career public servant. I’ve known Joe for many years, and I like the guy. He has many of the qualities that make a leader. He is COMPETENT, CREATIVE, and CURIOUS. He has COMMON SENSE. Not much CHARISMA, though. A lot of people think Biden is too plodding, but in my opinion this is a bum rap. And maybe what we really need this time around is someone who knows what he or she is doing. I’ve seen Joe inspire small groups of people with his simple command of facts and his logic. He’s not afraid to tell people what he thinks. There’s some great experience in that man—much of it in foreign affairs—if we’re willing to take advantage of it.
Joe’s biggest challenge is that despite a long career in the Senate, he’s not that well known across the country. If he wants to convince us he’s ready to lead the nation, he’ll have to get outside his cozy insider’s world and COMMUNICATE his plan in a way that makes people pay attention.
Barack Obama is one of those stars who seem to come from nowhere to capture the imagination of the nation. What’s not to like about this guy? He has CHARISMA and CONVICTION, and obviously he has strong COMMUNICATION skills. In my opinion, his race isn’t an issue. We’re as ready to elect a black man as we are to elect a woman. But is Obama the one? Is he COMPETENT to be President? He lacks experience in national government, and the media needs to push him on how he would lead—especially in foreign affairs. However, lack of experience isn’t always an insurmountable barrier. Look at the mess George Bush’s experienced team of Cheney and Rumsfeld made of things. But Obama is going to have to get very specific about what he would do and who would be on his team, in order for us to have enough confidence in him.
John Edwards is a very appealing guy, and I think he’s shown CHARACTER in his choice of issues. Let’s face it: Standing up for the poor isn’t the best way to raise money for your candidacy. Right now, Edwards is the only real populist in the race. He can COMMUNICATE, and has some star power, which can also make him look a bit slick. He’s had plenty of CRISIS in his life—the death of a child, and a wife with breast cancer—and his response has been inspirational. But is he COMPETENT to be President? Edwards was only in the Senate for one term before dropping out to run with Kerry.
One of the best things about John Edwards is his wife Elizabeth. She’s his closest advisor, and pretty much everyone agrees that she’s fantastic. His campaign manager is former congressman David Bonior from Michigan, who is a strong labor loyalist. I guess this shows where Edwards stands on domestic policy. Now let’s ask questions about his foreign policy plan.
Bill Richardson: I met Bill Richardson a couple of times when we were promoting NAFTA. He’s very smart, and he has a keen understanding of foreign relations—which is extremely important for a presidential candidate today. I’d say Richardson’s greatest strength is that he’s a strong COMMUNICATOR. He has the mind and heart of a negotiator, and I’m struck by how respectful he is of other nations—friends and foes alike. He also has an easygoing COMMON SENSE that is comforting in an age when ideologues rule the roost. And don’t forget, Richardson is extremely experienced, with proven COMPETENCE. He has worn many hats in government: He served in Congress, he was a cabinet member and an ambassador under Clinton, and he’s now governor of New Mexico. His biggest challenge will be getting his message out in a crowded field.
Others will come and go in the next year. Some of these front-runners will fade, and some will grow stronger. But here’s the key: Whatever the lineup, it is our obligation to look beyond appearances and sound bites, and do the hard work of choosing a leader. We can’t afford to get it wrong this time.
Here’s another caution. Recently, I saw a poll showing that 30 percent of Americans think “the time is right” for a business leader in the White House. Every couple of election cycles, people decide they’re tired of politicians and they look to the business world. That’s not necessarily such a bad thing. But you’ve got to realize that a business is not a democracy, so business leaders can get pretty frustrated with the immense bureaucracy and its glacial pace. And if you’re a CEO, you don’t have to worry too much about being politically correct.
Back in 1987, a lot of people were urging me to run for president in 1988. Committees were formed, money was raised, bumper stickers were produced (I LIKE I). I took it seriously. I went to visit my friend Tip O’Neill in Cape Cod to ask for his advice.
“Tip,” I said, “they want me to run for president.”
He laughed. “President of what?”
Tip set me straight. He said, “You’re used to running a big corporation. When you make a decision in the morning, you either earn a profit that day or you don’t. You can’t run a government that way. It would drive you crazy. You wouldn’t last a year. You’d have a heart attack because of the frustration. And if you did manage to live through the first year, you’d probably be assassinated in the second year because you’d push the envelope too far.”
I said, “Thanks for the tip, Tip.” I gave back the money and bowed out.
The point is, you can be a success in business and not have the temperament to be president. For myself, I concluded long ago that to run for President you’ve got to be overambitious or just plain crazy.
American democracy is a wonderful thing. Because no matter what they tell you, the American people, vote by vote, can create whatever we want to create. It’s all in our hands. But we have to stay alert and keep ourselves informed. Democracy isn’t a spectator sport.
Mark your calendar for November 11, 2008, and plan to vote. Casting your vote is an act of leadership, because you’re making a choice that will decide the future of this country. Step up to the booth. Take on the challenge. Anyone can be a leader, including you.
PART TWO
WHERE HAVE ALL OUR FRIENDS GONE?
VI
Will the real leader of the free world please stand up?
My father had a talent for making friends. When I was a kid, our house was always bustling. Every Sunday after church, it was crowded with family and friends, laughing, eating pasta, and drinking red wine. My father lit up those gatherings. Even during tough times, it was hard to feel gloomy when you were around him. I think what drew people to my father was his optimism. He loved life, and he hated to see anyone down in the dumps. If you were feeling low, he’d say, “Just wait. The sun’s gonna come out. It always does.” He meant it, too. And he was right.
Pop used to tell me, “If when you die you’ve got five real friends, you’ve had a great life.” He wanted me to see that people were more important than anything else. In fact, I think what he loved most about America was the way it opened its arms to the world.
If Pop were alive today, he’d be pretty upset to see how few friends America seems to have right now. I have to admit it gets kind of depressing for me, too. Everyone wants to be liked, and it feels lou
sy when you’re not. You get used to having people admire your country and want to emulate you. I always took it for granted that the U.S.A. was out in front leading the pack, and that our President was the leader of the free world. It wasn’t that other countries necessarily wanted to have democracies just like ours, or to take their marching orders from our President. It was more a recognition that the United States was a good friend to have, especially in times of crisis. Anyone who lived through World War II knows what I’m talking about. We were the free world’s best friend. And then, after the war, we did something really amazing: We turned our enemies into friends, too, by helping them rebuild their countries.
I’ve got to wonder if anyone out there still thinks our President is the leader of the free world. And what is the free world? Well, it might surprise you to know that the term free world is a little bit outdated. It was a designation created during the cold war era. Believe me, those were simpler times! There was the Communist world and there was the free world. Today, there could be many definitions of the free world, having nothing to do with democracy. We form alliances with other nations for a variety of reasons. We’re trading partners, lenders, and borrowers. We come together to address common concerns such as poverty, disease, and global warming. We help each other through natural disasters. Sometimes we form wartime coalitions. But the old idea that there’s a big line separating the open, free societies from the closed, repressive societies just doesn’t play too well anymore.
It would be much easier if there were such a thing as an axis of evil and an axis of good. But the lines are awfully blurred. It gets a little confusing when one year you see the United States supporting a regime like Saddam Hussein’s (as we did during the Iran-Iraq war) and the next year we’re calling him an evil dictator. Sometimes we have trouble figuring out who our friends are, who we’re supposed to be leading, and where we’re supposed to be leading them to.
ALLIES VERSUS ENEMIES
When you’re a kid there’s always a hierarchy in every group. And usually there’s one kid in particular who’s the big cheese. He always has to have things his way, and the others tend to defer to him. They want to please him, because if they don’t, he threatens to take his marbles and go home—or worse. America is getting a little bit like that. We’re nice enough if you play by our rules, but you never want to cross us.
Look what happened to France. France has been America’s friend since the beginning. If it weren’t for France’s help, we probably wouldn’t have made it as a country in the first place. We’ve repaid the favor over time, most notably by coming to France’s aid during World War I and World War II. So when France declared that it wasn’t so willing to join Bush’s “Coalition of the Willing,” a lot of Americans saw it as an act of betrayal. I can’t tell you how many times I heard people say something along the lines of, “We saved them in World War II, and this is the thanks we get.” Well, it would take a lot more words than I want to expend trying to explain why that attitude was pure baloney, but who cares about common sense when you’ve got righteous indignation on your side? Suddenly our country was consumed with an anti-French fervor. It reached its peak of absurdity the day Congress announced that the French fries in its three House cafeterias would henceforth be known as “Freedom fries.” (Take a good look, folks. This is an example of your tax dollars at work.)
Wisely, France did not offer an official response, except to mention that French fries actually come from Belgium. And luckily, we didn’t go all out in banning the word French from our vocabulary, or you would have been “freedom-kissing” your girlfriend and eating “freedom toast” for breakfast.
Freedom fries lasted about three years, until the House cafeterias quietly restored the original French fries to the menu. But even to this day, there are a lot of hard feelings toward the French. This doesn’t make any sense to me. There’s little doubt in my mind that if the United States had a legitimate need, France would be on our side—just like it was when the President’s father made the call for a Persian Gulf war coalition in 1991. France responded by sending thousands of troops.
One thing you learn if you live long enough is how to tell the difference between a true friend and a fair-weather friend. Most of us learn the hard way. I’ll never forget when I got fired from Ford. There was a guy who’d been one of my best friends in the company for twenty-five years. We played poker together every Friday night. Our families were close. We even took vacations together. But after I was fired, he never even called. Boy, that was a bitter pill to swallow.
A leader has to know who his true friends are, and it’s not always the ones who agree with everything or follow you blindly. With a true friend, there’s got to be equality. You share the good times and you share the bad times. There’s got to be respect. If your friend takes a principled position for the other side, you don’t have to like it, but you don’t call him names, either. These basic rules apply on the world stage as much as they do in your personal life.
I wish we could lower our voices and get rid of the tootin’, shootin’ cowboy mentality. It’s not a weakness to admit the other guy has a point once in a while.
LEADERSHIP ON THE WORLD STAGE
What does it mean to be a world leader today? And especially, what does global leadership mean for the American President? When I started thinking about it, I realized that I’d lived through the administrations of twelve Presidents, and I’ve actually met nine of them. I’d say that four of them really excelled at being world leaders. The first two, Roosevelt and Truman, are obvious.
It is almost impossible to imagine a President today who could exert the kind of leadership Roosevelt demonstrated in getting major programs through Congress, such as Social Security, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the WPA (Works Progress Administration), the Tennessee Valley Authority, and the National Recovery Act. And that was just in his first one hundred days!
My father was a passionate Roosevelt fan, although the National Recovery Act really tested his devotion. At the time he owned a hot-dog restaurant in Allentown, Pennsylvania, called the Orpheum Wiener House. He just couldn’t fathom a law that required him to pay a waitress the minimum wage and guarantee her forty hours of work when there was no business. It didn’t make sense to him. But even though my father sacrificed plenty under Roosevelt, he kept voting for the guy. In those days, sacrifice wasn’t such a maligned concept.
Harry Truman made a huge impression on me because he told it like it was. By the time he was President, I was old enough to know that this was a rare quality, in both politics and business. People were always trying to teach me to keep my mouth shut and be diplomatic, and I never did too well on that score. I enjoyed having a President in the Oval Office who spoke his mind in plain English.
Truman was the embodiment of a leader who emerged in a crisis. Nobody thought that little haberdasher from Missouri could fill the great FDR’s shoes. But Harry Truman stood ten feet tall. I think we should all pause for a moment to reflect on how lucky we were to have such a practical man of action in the White House when the future of the planet hung in the balance. Thank God Harry Truman wasn’t an ideologue.
My second two choices for world leadership are more recent, and I knew both of them quite well. They’re Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton.
Reagan and Clinton have more in common than you’d think. They both lived through rough childhoods, so you can see that their leadership qualities were formed in times of crisis. A lot of people who grow up in homes where there’s alcoholism, divorce, and poverty end up with chips on their shoulders. Reagan and Clinton both chose the opposite path. They became optimists. Reagan was the sunniest guy I ever met. He didn’t have a mean bone in his body. It was the key to his charisma, and I think that’s why they called him the “Great Communicator.” He honestly liked people, and his warmth was genuine. I got a dose of it myself. When Reagan heard that my wife Mary was dying, he made a point of calling me to offer comfort and prayers. It was a very low
moment for me, and I’ll never forget his kindness.
Reagan had strong convictions and the courage to pursue them. He decided that he was going to end the cold war, but he didn’t try to go it alone. He put together the team that could do it—and it was some team—Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, and Mikhail Gorbachev.
Bill Clinton is also a communicator. In fact, the guy will talk you into the ground. You ask him the time and he’ll build you a watch. He loves to talk, but most of the time he makes pretty good sense.
I know there are a lot of people in this country who just can’t understand why Clinton was such a popular President, and why he’s still so popular today. I think it’s his passion for governing, his openness, and his respect for people from all countries and all walks of life. The guy really seems to care about making a difference, and that’s been even more evident since he left office. There are very few places in the world where Bill Clinton isn’t welcomed by throngs of people. These days when he gives a speech, you can see the people in the audience leaning toward him in a way that kind of reminds you of a thirsty man crawling toward an oasis. They’re dying for intelligent analysis, but mostly they’re dying for words of hope, not fear. “Much has changed in the last fifteen years,” Clinton said recently. “But what has not changed is the relentless search for the common good.” Those are words that inspire.
Clinton has some pretty good advice for the current administration, if it cares to listen. He said recently, “It’s just plain crazy to stop talking to people you disagree with. As long as you keep talking, there’s hope.”
He’s right. If you’re the leader of the free world, your ideas have to be bigger than your guns.
