Americans rooting for New Zealand's boat to win the America's Cup

Today I heard a talk show host, Tim Montemayor, open his 11 AM show with a question to the audience about why there were so many Americans rooting for the New Zealand's boat to win the America's Cup. Mr. Montemayor described Mr. Larry Ellinson the syndicate owner, the entrepreneur, the private person, and wondered aloud whether there was a direct correlation between Mr. Ellinson success, a dislike that there might exist for him in the USA, and the high number of folks rooting for New Zealand. I was not able to listen to the remainder of the show, but the subject peeked my curiosity.

We just contested a presidential election where one of the candidates, Mr. Obama, focused the brunt of the money invested on advertisement on demonizing his opponent based on the fact that he is a successful entrepreneur. Faced with a rather poor record on his first term, Mr. Obama choose to attempt to convince Americans that Mr. Romney was a bad choice due to being a rich villain. It worked!

It seems to be that Mr. Ellinson is catching the tail winds, sorry for the metaphor, of this mind set stoked so well during this past presidential contest: successful entrepreneurs are villains! There is nothing new under the sun, this has been the case throughout our country's history. There is an interesting irony in Mr. Ellinson victory though; this regata was a contest between an entrepreneur, Mr. Ellinson, and a government, New Zealand. Guess what? The entrepreneur won! May that serve as inspiration to those who deride successful entrepreneurs and root for their failure to reconsider their position.