Rebuilding America’s Leadership

The Presidential race is about LEADERSHIP. Rebuilding America’s image and reputation as a world leader is the over-arching #1 issue that should be embraced by whoever becomes the next President, in my opinion.  It will have a direct impact on America’s security, leadership and respect around the world.

Part of the reason for the current economic crisis – aside from unbridled greed on Wall Street brought on by the Bush administration deregulating everything in sight – has been a global lack of trust in America.  Our nation’s reputation, the world’s trust in our country, has been damaged beyond words during the last eight years by a tragic comedy of incompetence, greed and arrogance.

A few of the top reasons, in my view –

• Karen Hughes, the former local TV reporter in Texas and Bush political crony with no communications training, was put in charge of America’s image, creating a string of embarrassing gaffs and fiascos. At last report, she had joined Burson-Marsteller PR.
• The Lincoln Group, a shadowy and tiny PR company in Washngton with no PR experience, has received tens of millions of dollars from multiple Pentagon contracts through insider Pentagon connections, to “sell” the image of the U.S. war in Iraq to the Middle East. They hired interns and college grads to do the work, pocketed huge sums, and created a string of embarrassing mistakes simply through incompetence.

So, as we head into the final days of an agonizingly long Presidential campaign, what I will be watching for is who among candidates Obama or McCain will send a signal to the world that the United States, which has fallen into corruption, cronyism and decay for too many years, is on its way to a new beginning.

Category: Leadership, Reputation management