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FLASHBACK: When George McGovern Met Reality
After a run for the presidency and a quarter century on Capitol Hill, George McGovern left public service and became the owner of a business -- a punishingly revelatory experience. If only, he says now, his career sequence had been the other way around
Calvin Coolidge was too simplistic when he observed that "the business of America is business." But like most sweeping political statements, even Coolidge's contains some truth -- enough, as I've learned, to make me wish I had known more firsthand about the concerns and problems of American businesspeople while I was a U.S. senator and later a presidential nominee. That knowledge would have made me a better legislator and a more worthy aspirant to the White House.
In 1988 I yielded to a longtime desire to own an inn with conference facilities, where I could provide good food, comfortable rooms, and lively public discussion sessions. A friend of mine, who had a lifetime of hotel- and restaurant-management experience, described the Stratford Inn, in Connecticut, near the respected Shakespeare Theater, as the ideal place for such an undertaking. He agreed to manage it for me if I'd put up the capital.
Without properly analyzing the difficulties of such an endeavor, I plunged into the hotel industry with a virtually impossible leasehold agreement, just as the recession hit New England with unusual force. Given the nature of the lease and the severity of the recession, I doubt in hindsight that either Hilton or Marriott could have made this venture profitable. I certainly couldn't.
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| George McGovern |
By George McGovern, Dec. 1, 1993, Inc.com
After a run for the presidency and a quarter century on Capitol Hill, George McGovern left public service and became the owner of a business -- a punishingly revelatory experience. If only, he says now, his career sequence had been the other way around
Calvin Coolidge was too simplistic when he observed that "the business of America is business." But like most sweeping political statements, even Coolidge's contains some truth -- enough, as I've learned, to make me wish I had known more firsthand about the concerns and problems of American businesspeople while I was a U.S. senator and later a presidential nominee. That knowledge would have made me a better legislator and a more worthy aspirant to the White House.
In 1988 I yielded to a longtime desire to own an inn with conference facilities, where I could provide good food, comfortable rooms, and lively public discussion sessions. A friend of mine, who had a lifetime of hotel- and restaurant-management experience, described the Stratford Inn, in Connecticut, near the respected Shakespeare Theater, as the ideal place for such an undertaking. He agreed to manage it for me if I'd put up the capital.
Without properly analyzing the difficulties of such an endeavor, I plunged into the hotel industry with a virtually impossible leasehold agreement, just as the recession hit New England with unusual force. Given the nature of the lease and the severity of the recession, I doubt in hindsight that either Hilton or Marriott could have made this venture profitable. I certainly couldn't.
Read the full story: www.inc.com
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