Word: iacocca
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...took days for Iacocca to get over his hurt and bewilderment over the "sayonara" brouhaha. Clearly, he still has an uncertain feel for the hair-trigger proprieties of national politics. In the past his Japan bashing had never provoked such alarm. "Jesus, it was a closed meeting! These single- issue guys--I mean, what the hell's going on? How'd you like to do that for a living every day? I don't understand it." Joseph Califano, who has worked for the past three Democratic Presidents, does understand it. Says Califano: "The only guys who get shots...
George Romney, the last and only auto executive to make a serious run for the presidency, had no groundswell pushing him along in 1968. How would Iacocca run in 1988? Most pros believe that Iacocca could be politically popular. Like Eisenhower, his worldly achievement is impressive; his Trumanesque candor is bracing; and like Hubert Humphrey or Ronald Reagan, he brims with joie de vivre. Indeed, says Califano, "Reagan and Lee are similar. Both say flat out what they think. There aren't any hidden agendas." Wendell Larsen, a former executive under Iacocca at Chrysler, elaborates on the Reagan analogy. "Some...
...course, a no-holds-barred guy, notwithstanding his appeal as a celebrated citizen, would quickly get into trouble as a candidate, suddenly judged by more fastidious standards. Iacocca is occasionally intemperate and does not always read his audiences correctly. In Washington, at a recent dinner in his honor, he rose in response to a toast. The assembled Georgetown elite probably expected a brief, understated thank-you. Instead they got fun-loving, full-of- himself, jabbery Iacocca for much too long. He does not take criticism well; a campaign entails incessant criticism. And he frets about physical danger. Some years back...
Moreover, Iacocca likes getting his way in the world quickly and unambiguously. He is a bossy boss. Heads of corporations can fold whole departments, hire anybody they choose and, in Iacocca's phrase, shuck the losers. Presidents, on the other hand, are hemmed in, constrained by the Executive bureaucracy, checked and balanced by Congress. In the give and take of governing, Iacocca's virtues--frankness, boldness--might not serve him so well. "He's a man who wants his hands on all the levers," says White House Aide Craig Fuller, the Administration official friendliest with Iacocca. Could a President Iacocca...
...Califano seems somewhat more hopeful. "He says privately what he says in public--that he doesn't want it. But once he made the commitment," he says, "Lee would be phenomenal as a candidate. He knows how to lead. He knows how to communicate." A few who know Iacocca say they think that he could be nudged into...