When Romney jumped in to turn around the Olympics, the big event had not happened yet. In fact, Romney was brought in about 3 years before the big event. If things were not running well beforehand, then it looks like Romney did âturn things aroundâ because the Utah Olympics ultimately ran well.
The Big Dig is a different story. If anybody were to turn this project around, he or she would have had to start more than ten years ago. That is when things started to get ugly.
In June of 1995, the Boston Globe reported âcost controlâ issues with the Big Dig project. At that point, the Globe reported a project total of about $8 billion. In July of 1995, the Globe reported $10.6 billion. This projection came to light in Bill Weldâs second term as Governor of Massachusetts. While the cost estimate appears to grow linearly from September 1983 to late October 1992, estimates appear to grow exponentially from October 1992 until the astounding $10.6 billion estimate in July of 1995.
Do not blame Weld for the sudden increase in the project estimate. Instead, you might credit him with telling the truth in his second term or be amazed at his and the Dukakis administrationsâ ability to keep the real numbers secret for so long. Who knows? However, the point of the graph is not to lay blame for bad estimating. It, instead, shows us, within plus or minus 1.5 years, when the S**T hit the fan and when a rescue team should have been called in. It is obvious. In three years, the project estimate jumped 67% from just over $6 billion to just over $10 billion. The canary in this coalmine tunnel died and nobody took corrective action.
Romney knows this. He knows that something should have been done ten years ago. His predecessors did not take appropriate corrective action and now he is stuck with the problem. What does this make him? A janitor? A construction forensics investigator? Blame assigner? Ass coverer? (as in CYA). âAll of the aboveâ is a reasonable answer but my favorite is âAss Covererâ (pardon my Bush-like word creation).
Romney is a professional politician with plans for his next job. He wants to be the new âdecider.â Clearly, he is too late to turn the project around but he might be just in time to clean up the mess. He is, of course, hoping this âcleaner upperâ image will further his chances for the next job and hide his partyâs role as co-mess maker. (Both democrats and republicans screwed up on this project).
With any luck, Massachusetts will suffer only one wrongful death lawsuit and the inspectors crawling over the project will catch any other construction errors before anyone else gets hurt. But it is a shame that it took the death of a tunnel user to get this kind of attention on the Big Digâs construction problems. It is also a shame that Romney is using the tragedy to further his own ambitions.
Mark
“From now on, it’s me, me, me.”
— Mitt Romney