I would like to make an early conditional endorsement for U.S. President for 2008; Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney. A recent article in the Atlantic Monthly magazine profiling Governor Romney's as a potential candidate touched on his commitment to Lean government - cutting out waste and patronage from government in his own terms. This struck us as something worth voting for.

I have to admit that we have not done an exhaustive study of all governors or even possible 2008 Presidential candidates from the two parties. Hopefully Governor Romney is not the only one speaking out consistently about getting waste out of government. He is the first one to hit the radar in our quest for Lean government.

What has he accomplished as governor? He has turned a $3 billion dollar deficit into a $700 million surplus for the Massachusetts budget by working with the state legislature, according to his bio from the Republican Governor Association. Although it's never safe to take numbers completely at face value, he seems to have cut out waste for the Massachusetts state government.

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This is not to say that Governor Romney is not a politician, and a fallible human being. In February 2003 during a speech on efforts to cut waste out of state government he said "First, waste and inefficiency," he said. "When I ran for office, I said I'd find $1 billion. I was wrong. I'm proud to report that our team has found $2 billion." He back-pedaled a few days later "I'm not telling you that there's $2 billion in waste and inefficiency that I've found." This may not have been as fact-based as we would want a Lean government President of the U.S.A. to be.

He has been accused of cutting services and raising fees, rather than cutting waste, in order to meet his numbers. Not all organizations can become Lean through waste cuts alone. Although the ideal is the "no layoff" Lean transformation in some cases there is not enough time to turn the company around without cuts both in waste and personnel and facilities. The key is to do this in a fair and humanistic way.

He is a businessman and a former Bain & Company consultant. This gives him the advantage of understanding how organizations are restructured, even if he may not have the Lean thinking and the kaizen touch. Depending on what you think of businessmen, consultants, and politicians (I happen to be two out of three), you may or may not like Mitt Romney for president.

He has experience as a CEO of the Salt Lake City Olympic Games and also as a consultant to CEOs while working at Bain & Company. "We took things out that were waste, that were unnecessary, the folderol that wasn't essential to carrying out the mission of a great Olympics. The same thing, I believe, can happen in government."

Governor Romney says "The easy way to fix any problem is to go to the people and say you have to pay more money, but that's not what the job of management is. The job of management is to find ways to permanently and structurally change the costs of our structure such that we can have a balanced budget without always raising taxes every time people think there's a need." According to the Boston Herald Mar 22, 2002.

In a 25 minute speech given to the New Hampshire Federation of Republican Women's Lilac Dinner the word "waste" appeared five times, in the context of "cutting out waste" in government in order not to raise taxes.

What is the "condition" in my conditional endorsement? Let's have the good Governor listen to the experiences of folks at Naval Air Command, the LAPD, and other people in various parts of the public sector who have learned Lean principles first hand through kaizen. Don't just talk about waste reduction in government in big, sweeping terms. Experience it at the small, local, everyday level. Then take kaizen back to big government.

Perhaps on a visit home for few days to Utah he can take a trip to Ogden. There is a facility of Parker Hannifin that has been on the Lean path for many years, or he could tour the world class Lean manufacturing facility of Autoliv in Ogden and learn of their approach to cutting out waste. Right down the street in Ogden is Hill AFB, and Governor Romney could learn more about practical ways the Air Force is cutting out waste and saving tax payers' money.

It's hard to say what the world will be like in 2008. Certainly taxes and government spending are not the only issues. Yet the reallocation of wealth for the maximum good of the country based on a set of shared values and principles is what I expect from a good government. In his 2004 State of the State address Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney said regarding the $1 billion budget gap "When we eliminate waste in government, we can do more for people." Governor Romeny seems capable of that type of government.

Wouldn't it be great to hear those words coming out of the mouth of the President of the United States, the largest economy and most powerful country in the world? I reserve the right to change my vote. But if I had to vote today, Mitt Romney would by my President.