“No More Mr. Nice Guy”

-Alice Cooper 

Jim Bunning

No one ever accused fellow Hall of Famer, Jim Bunning of being a nice guy. 

People use words like prickly or assertive to describe Senator Bunning. Others use shorter versions of the same words. 

Bunning got my attention this year when he ripped into the CEO of Delta Airlines for the way Delta handled its employee pension plans. 

Your typical Senator sucks up to the CEO of a big company. Corporations are fertile ground for campaign contributions. 

The Delta CEO won’t be at Bunning’s next fundraiser but knows to get his act together. 

When President Bush nominated Ben Bernanke to replace Alan Greenspan as Chair of the Federal Reserve Board, the only Republican voice to speak out against the nomination was Bunning’s. 

It can’t be easy to challenge the choice a President from your own political party. 

Bunning thought Bernanke was a poor choice and said something about it. 

The Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board is the most powerful person in the world. And few people really know it. 

William Greider’s book about the Federal Reserve Board, “Secrets of the Temple” ought to be required reading for all college students. Not just business students, everyone. People need to understand the incredible power that the Federal Reserve has. 

If the current Federal Reserve Chair, Alan Greenspan, coughs, he can send the world economic markets into a boom or a tailspin. Investors hang on his every word. 

The President does not have that kind of power. 

We need to know more about a man who could change our lives. 

Bernanke’s entire career has been in academia or government. The man that can make or break bankers and businesspeople has never been either. 

It’s like hiring someone who played a doctor on television as Surgeon General. 

Like most Americans, I don’t know much about Bernanke and hope that he knows what he is doing. 

Before he waltzes into the job, I would like someone to ask him some tough questions. 

Jim Bunning is my best hope. 

All of Bernanke’s supporters are touting Bernanke’s high powered degrees from high powered universities. 

 I would feel more comfortable if he ran a small business and had to occasionally max out his credit cards to make the payroll. 

I’d like for a Federal Reserve Chair to know what it feels like to tell a good employee you are laying them off. 

I’d like a Fed Chair who has sat up at night and worried how to pay the bills. 

I’d like a Fed Chair to have worked out payments with angry  lenders. 

Instead of an academic, I would have preferred a small town banker. Someone who has looked a friend or neighbor in the eye and turned down their request for a loan.  

I hope Bernanke knows what people do to make their businesses survive.

It helps to have done it, instead of reading about it in a textbook. 

Several Federal Reserve Chairs have faced crisis’s that could have wiped out the nation’s economic system. The Chairs made the right moves. 

I want to make sure Bernanke has the same kinds of moves in him. 

I doubt that Bernanke will get the working over that Harriet Miers is getting in her bid for the Supreme Court. Senators, like most people, don’t want to discuss arcane economic and monetary policy.  

Senators don’t get riled up about a nomination for anything unless there is media attention to be gained. 

People who get elected to offices like United States Senators usually got there by being friendly. It is the same breed of person who rises to the top in a large corporation. 

They are smooth, glib and do not ruffle feathers. 

None of those words describe Bunning. His rise in politics was based on his intense competitiveness and name recognition from being a Hall of Fame athlete. 

If Jim Bunning and I went through 1000 issues, we would probably disagree on 990 of them. 

We may have different philosophies but I’m glad someone is asking the tough questions. 

If we are not careful, all the nice guys (and women) in the United States Senate will cause America to finish last. 

Don McNay is President of McNay Settlement Group in Richmond, Ky.  His column is syndicated nationally on the CNHI News Service.  You can write to him at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it