Small Businessmen of the World Unite!

While I agree with Wobblie that any defeat for Mannix is a victory for, well, everyone but Mannix, my jubilation is tempered by the fact that the guy who won the Republican nomination is one of these guys running as a "small businessman." There are few things in American politics I hate more than the small businessman trope. You know, where the (usually) Republican candidate pledges to take the values of Main Street to Washington. Frugality, hard work, Kiwanis Club membership.

I cannot understand why people buy into this argument. Can they not see that the skills needed to run a small business might be completely different than the skills it takes to run a multi-trillion dollar international organization? Isn't this obvious? I don't know exactly what Mike Erickson, the man who got the Republican nomination, does for a living, but it looks like he found an inefficiency in a market and figured out a way to make profit for himself by exploiting that inefficiency. That he's very successful at it only means that either it was a rather large inefficiency or that he's really exploiting the hell out of it. Either way, not sure how this skill translates on the floor of the House of Representatives.

Besides, is Washington not already crawling with the small businessman? Are the fine folks of the Oregon 5th (the Fightin' Fifth!) thinking that maybe what Washington needs is one more small businessman and that will finally end the control of the people who don't understand hard work, penny-pinching, and the value of networking through artificial social interactions disguised as charity events?

I will say this about Mike Erickson, though. If the rumor that he drove his ex-girlfriend to Portland and paid for her abortion is true, then I have to give him that. Too many men would have ditched the woman completely or thought that a $800 check absolves them of responsibility.