GOP needs a shadow president who's an expert at rescuing failing enterprises: that's Romney

With the Republican Party riddled with self-doubt, uncertain of its future path, and lacking a broadly accepted leader, it's time for one of its presidential aspirants to take a bold step forward.

For want of an established post, let's call him the shadow president. If he were to perform well, he would get a leg up on the field of Republican candidates for the presidential nomination in 2012.

While it is not my purpose to pick the shadow president, the Obama administration's performance to date points to one man, Mitt Romney. The son of one-time Michigan Gov. George Romney, who also was an auto industry executive, Mitt Romney became rich and famous by recognizing undervalued assets and liberating things of value in failed or failing corporations.

Doesn't that sound like a good job description for the next president?

The situation is so dire, after all, that officials of two relics of Communism, Russia and China, are urging the U.S. government to exercise caution as it piles up previously unthinkable levels of debt

Along with its nuclear arsenal, Russia's partnership with the United States on space exploration is one of its few remaining claims to world status.

For China, the United States is a major market as well as a source of stolen military advances, such as the stealth propellor system for submarines. China also is the leading buyer of U.S. bonds, and that investment becomes more risky as the U.S. debt, and the chance of default, grows at an unprecedented rate.

Whether China values the United States most as a market, or as a mahufacturer of advanced military systems that China can steal, is not clear.

In the absence of a shadow president, the most effective political class spokesman for conservatism has been former vice-president Dick Cheney. But Cheney's strengths are military and foreign affairs, and he is unlikely to retain an official role in future years.

So who do we have who can revive a damaged and dispirited nation that will not have recourse to a bankruptcy court?

The obvious choice is Romney, whose academic career surpasses President Obama's and who earned a fortune as a skilled scavenger prowling through the boneyards of corporate America. Estimates of his net worth run as high as $500 million. Liberals will pillory him for that, but respect for success may make a comeback as the prospect of America's failure looms.

A graduate of Brigham Young, where he was valedictorian, Romney subsequently earned a joint doctoral/master's degree from Harvard's law and business schools. Success in business led, in early 1999, to a summons to rescue the failing 2002 Olympics Winter Games in Salt Lake City. With Romney at the held, the Olympics recovered from a huge deficit to earn a profit of $100 million.

Romney donated his $825,000 salary to charity.

The turnarnound led to a successful campaign for governor of Massachusetts, where he served one term before seeking rhe Republican presidential nomination in 2008.

Now that American business is falling more and more under the heavy hand of an arrogant, fascistic government that is running up trillions of dollars in new debt, perhaps it's time for a new approach to candidate selection.

Let the job that is to be done define the candidate. As of now, the job at hand points to an experienced, successful turnaround specialist.