Post Office Tipping Point: Romney to the Rescue?

By Mary Claire Kendall

Madonna of the Trail outside Bethesda Post Office, 
which was closed in 2012

The mess President Obama has gotten our nation into has reached a clearly definable tipping point: The United States Post Office will just disappear in December if something is not done and fast to put it on a solid financial footing.

The agency is so low on cash, reports the New York Times, that it can’t make a $5.5 billion payment due this month. It has never been so precipitously close to collapse.  (I knew something was radically wrong when I couldn’t find a mailbox in downtown DC to save myself!)

While Republican presidential candidate Governor Rick Perry of Texas subtly hints he will be “Superman” coming to America’s rescue, what we need, in this instance, is former Governor (and front runner) Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, “Turnaround Artist”—his skill documented in his book about how he rescued the Salt Lake City Olympics—to design a plan for saving the Post Office. 

 

Gary Cooper Commemorative Stamp
From the Legends of Hollywood series
Copyright: 2008 USPS. 

Romney could bring the kind of creativity and business savvy needed to breathe new life back into the Post Office that he brought to creating Staples while at Bain & Company, as one of the founding partners—where he took struggling businesses and turned them around.  Perhaps he could devise a public-private partnership that would streamline the service for greater efficiency and cost savings and maximize profits from its iconic stamp collection celebrating American life—famous writers, artists, scientists, stars, statesmen, educators, et alia.  For instance, the Post Office’s marketing tool of stamps featuring notable African Americans—a sterile list from 2004—is wholly inadequate, and properly conceived and executed could reap huge financial rewards.

Edward Hopper Commemorative Stamp
Copyright: USPS 2009. 

It’s just a question of applying good old American know-how in a focused, determined, effective way.

Such a gesture would touch the hearts of every American, who cherishes their community post offices—replete with memories from childhood, standing in line, securely clutching their mother's hand, into adulthood, hopefully clutching that job application—and would be a big boost to his presidential campaign.

It would also be worthy of that iconic Madonna of the Trail standing in front of the Post Office in Bethesda, Maryland—just outside of Washington, D.C.—representing resolute determination and steadfastness in the face of great odds—precisely what’s needed to meet this and every other daunting challenge facing America.

The Madonna is one of twelve monuments commissioned by the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution that dot the National Old Trails Road, extending from Maryland to California—roughly the trail the candidates will follow in 2012, a trail now littered with reminders of American decline under almost three years of Obama’s wanting “leadership.”  Also known as the Oceans-to-Oceans Highway, this 2,448 mile long highway began in New York City, traversed Baltimore and Bethesda, eventually wending its way through the southwest, along what became the famed Route 66 highway, and finally ending at the shores of the Pacific in California. 

All twelve monuments were dedicated in 1928, and now, 83 years later, are presiding over a crumbling America, of which the Post Office’s decline is a clear and startling example. 

The Post Office survived the telephone, the telegraph but may not survive the Internet and Obama, who ironically marshaled the power of the Internet to win—resulting, it seems clearer day by excruciating day, in America losing big. 

But, hope—and help you can believe in—is on the way in the form of competency, experience and heart such as Romney possesses.

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