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On the fence: A small business owner wants her candidate to say the right thing
Electoral placards supporting U.S. President Barack Obama and his Republican rival Mitt Romney are seen near Lynn University in Boca Raton, Fla.
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Olalah Njenga is the CEO and Senior Marketing Strategist at Yellow Wood Group in Raleigh, North Carolina.
As Election Day nears, Olalah Njenga is still looking for answers. She's the owner of YellowWood Group, a small strategic market research firm in Raleigh, N.C., and though she had her sights set on participating in her state's early voting option, she still can't make up her mind who she wants to run the country for the next four years.
We met Njenga last week as Marketplace's Election Road Show passed through Raleigh, and she joined us on stage to explain her trouble deciding. But despite talking it through on stage, and after a two-year campaign for her vote, there's something holding her back from checking the box for Romney: She's still looking for the "how" in his ambitious plans to reshape taxing and spending in the U.S.
"I really need to support something that I understand how it will be implemented and what I can expect as a result," she says. "Unfortunately, Mr. Romney has failed that test. I had been holding out hope, and it's taken three debates and a storm...and he still has not given us that information."
Njenga admires Romney's leadership ability and what she perceives as his understanding of money and what it takes to run a business, but as time runs out, without that crucial "how," she finds herself leaning toward Obama. At this point, to get her vote, Romney will need to speak directly to her -- literally. She says if Romney calls her cell to do some explaining, she'll take the call.
I feel frustrated. I don't understand what voters like Ms Njenga expect. This is what I did: a Google search for "Romney plan". This took me, in less than one minute, to Mr Romney's Web site, which has sections explaining Mr Romney's positions on taxes, regulation, trade, labor, human capital, and spending. There's a link to Mr Romney's Five-Point Plan. The whole five-point plan comprises about 140 pages of text. Frankly, what more do you want? What more can the Romney campaign do? Read the whole 140 pages aloud on TV? I presume that President Obama has a similar amount of detail available, for those who are willing to make an effort. (Not to mention his documented record.)
Mr Romney is very good about saying the wrong words or the right words. It just depends if you're in the 47% or not. It baffles me that after all his promising, he hasn't said the "right" words for Ms. Njenga. You must remember that the business that Mr Romney was/is in, was/is very good a "cutting" fat/jobs. Romney doesn't really know how he's going to create jobs especially if Europe and Asia pull us into another recession after the election. Talk is cheap. Execution and results take real work.
Mr Romney is very good about saying the wrong words or the right words. It just depends if you're in the 47% or not. It baffles me that after all his promising, he hasn't said the "right" words for Ms. Njenga. You must remember that the business that Mr Romney was/is in, was/is very good a "cutting" fat/jobs. Romney doesn't really know how he's going to create jobs especially if Europe and Asia pull us into another recession after the election. Talk is cheap. Execution and results take real work.
Ms. Njenga is making me physically ill. She is obviously a smart and well educated woman and yet, in my opinion, she fits the profile of a "low information voter". Ms. Njenga sits there and tells the story of how her daughter called her fearfully and said "Mom, if I graduate from college after spending all this time and all this money and I can't find a job, will you create a job for me at your company." Ms. Njenga says that her children's future is her biggest priority. No argument there. Her daughter, who I am sure is hardworking and industrious, may end up taking a job out of college that has lower pay than she anticipated. Health insurance might not be offered or if it is, the employee co-pay may be too expensive for her daughter's paycheck. So how can Ms. Njenga not make the connection that it is OBAMACARE that would allow her to keep her children on her small business insurance plan until they are 26-years-old? Or even if she is not thinking about it for her own children because she knows that she would just make them employees of her own company, can she not think beyond herself about the children of other parents who work hard but not necessarily at a business they personally own so they wouldn't be able to just "create" jobs for their graduating sons and daughters who would still need health insurance?
While I appreciate your candor in responding to my interview with Kai, I am offended that you would remark " can she not think beyond herself about the children of other parents". You have but a soundbite of my thoughts and feelings and yet are quick to wag your proverbial finger at me for what appears to be either my insensitivity or my ignorance of the plight of other families. Perhaps for you the choice of candidate was effortless due your own personal circumstances. But for some of us, the choice is not as easy, however it is MY choice to express with my vote . . . not yours on my behalf.
Ms. Njenga, I would not presume to tell you how to vote. But I make no apologies for expressing my opinion about your statements on your thoughts regarding the election and your choices in it as expressed in the interview. If you are unable to take criticism on the Internet from people you feel don't truly know anything about you then may I suggest you avoid giving interviews about your thought process in voting on nationally heard radio programs.
I turned off this piece about one minute in. I would ask the producers what valuable information a story can provide interviewing somebody who at this point has not decided how to vote next Tuesday. There is the illusion of "news," but call it human interest or slice o' life, it most certainly does not tell us anything.
