I'm not sure that Mitt Romney ever really had a realistic shot at being elected President. He would have come a lot closer had he simply released the facts regarding President Obama's real track record regarding his level of support for minorities and small businesses.
Federal contracts to minority-owned businesses dropped for the first time in 10 years during the first Obama administration. The Huffington Post and the Washington Post both reported that federal contracts for minority firms dropped by as much as 8 percent.
In addition to the dramatic drop in federal contracts to minority businesses, unemployment for African Americans reached twice the national average.
Romney should have also exposed President Obama's abysmal track record with small businesses. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 98 percent of all U.S. firms have less than 100 employees. These 27 million small businesses are responsible for more than 50 percent of the private sector workforce, 50 percent of the GDP and more than 90 percent of all U.S. exporters.
Despite his unending rhetoric about investing in the middle class and creating jobs, the realities of President Obama's policies were quite different.
Even though small businesses are responsible for more than 90 percent of net new jobs, less than 3 percent of President Obama's economic stimulus funds were directed to small businesses.
The single largest federal program aimed at creating jobs and investing in the middleclass is the Small Business Act, administered by the Small Business Administration (SBA). Current Federal law mandates a minimum of 23 percent of all federal contracts be awarded to small businesses. During the Obama administration, it has been widely reported that billions of dollars in federal small business contracts have been diverted to corporate giants worldwide. Some firms that received federal small business contracts during the Obama administration include Boeing, Hewlett Packard, AT&T, Motorola, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Apple, John Deere, Rockwell Collins, General Electric, General Dynamics, Office Depot, Xerox, Dell and ManTech.
Every year of the Obama administration, the SBA Office of Inspector General (SBA OIG) named the diversion of federal small business contracts to corporate giants as the biggest management challenge facing the SBA.
Just last week, President Obama proposed essentially closing the SBA by combining it with the Department of Commerce. Closing an agency by combining it with another is a tried and true old Washington trick aimed at getting rid of an agency that's housing information the public would object to.
Why Romney focused so much attention on the failings of the Obama administration that were of little interest to the American people is puzzling. He could have concentrated on President Obama's lackluster record, but instead, he didn't even mention the documentable facts about the Obama administration that would have shocked even the most passionate Obama supporter.
If I had to guess why Romney refused to mention the drop in federal funds for minority-owned firms and the diversion of billions in federal small business contracts to Fortune 500 firms, it would be because both trends are strongly supported by major Republican donors in the defense industry and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.