Upstart Business Journal…
Romney and Ryan have few convention words for entrepreneurs
By J. Jennings, Moss, Editor
August 31, 2012 

With the 2012 Republican National Convention now one for the history books, it's time to take stock of what Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan had to say to the nation's entrepreneurs. The answer: not a whole lot. 

Romney, the party's presidential nominee, mentioned "entrepreneurs" exactly once in his speech Thursday night. Ryan, his running mate, didn't say the word at all when he gave his address at the Tampa Times Forum on Wednesday. 

Both men gave props to America's small-business owners, largely as a way to bash President Barack Obama's health care reform law—aka Obamacare. Ryan did the better job of speaking to this segment of the economic engine, especially as he spoke about his mother who started a business after his father died. 

"Behind every small business, there's a story worth knowing. All the corner shops in our towns and cities, the restaurants, cleaners, gyms, hair salons, hardware stores—these didn't come out of nowhere. A lot of heart goes into each one," Ryan said, as he launched into a "you did build that" riff meant to contrast a comment Obama made suggesting that small-business people had help, including government help, along the way. "After all that work, and in a bad economy, it sure doesn't help to hear from their president that government gets the credit." 

Romney said his administration would "champion small business" by reducing taxes, "simplifying and modernizing" government regulations, and ditching Obamacare for some yet-to-be-publicized replacement. 

No doubt, their words will ring true with a good number of small-business owners who are still struggling five years after the recession and who fear what health care reform will mean to their bottom lines. But speaking about "small business" is different than speaking about entrepreneurship. Many entrepreneurs are small-business people, but they don't necessarily think of themselves as such. 

Entrepreneurs talk about innovation, expansion, creativity, action, and ideas. Listening to Romney and Ryan lay out their arguments for why the Republican team should get elected, there wasn't much to appeal directly to this group of business risk takers. Next week in Charlotte, we'll find out if Obama and Joe Biden do a better job of appealing to the entrepreneurial mind-set. 

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