As people who enjoy traveling and do a good bit of it for business - and especially since at least one member of our staff has worked for a travel agency in the past - we often keep an eye out for stories of both positive and negative travel experiences. The most recent travel horror story didn't take an eagle eye to spot in the media - though its similarities to another voyage that also ended in disaster this week may not be readily apparent.
Over the weekend, off the coast of Italy, a massive passenger cruise ship, the Costa Concordia, one of the many ships of the Carnival cruise line, ran aground and had to be abandoned by over 4200 passengers and crew. It now appears that the Captain wanted to show off his ship to some people on the ship, as well as those watching from the shoreline.
To say that the Captain was stupid, immature, and criminally selfish isn't far from the truth, since at least six people died because of his literal showboating. Sixteen souls - including two Americans - remain missing. The captain is facing manslaughter charges, and his career is effectively over. The problem here isn't just the Captain's actions, but the entire shipping and sea travel industry - as well as multiple governments, including that of the U.S. and Italy.
In a similar way, this week, as the 2012 GOP Presidential race steered its way toward South Carolina, former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman took a quick trip to the state, brought nearly his entire family and campaign staff with him to begin the next leg of his presidential campaign - and then proceeded to run his campaign aground, in front of all of them, ending his adventure after just one caucus and one primary election.
After Huntsman's announcement, and the now nearly certain verdict that Mitt Romney will be the GOP's nominee, one Republican party official we know commented, "What the hell is up with that? One caucus, one primary, and the nominee is already decided?!"
With politics in the United States right now, everyone involved, from campaign staffers and party personnel, to members of the media who cover politics know; the problem is Citizens United, and there doesn't appear to be a rescue likely to come anytime soon. With a campaign finance system that has very few regulations, and gaping holes in the regulations it does have, money continues to capsize the opportunities of great candidates who simply can't raise the enormous sums needed to stay afloat in today's political jungle. The only way to currently win an election is to have at least as much money in your campaign coffers - if not more - than your next closest challenger.
As solid a candidate as Jon Huntsman was for the GOP - and he was truly the candidate with the broadest potential that the GOP had running - when his campaign ship ran out of money, his race to the finish line was sunk.
What many don't realize about the cruise business, is how closely its problems mirror those of the U.S. electoral system. There is very little oversight in much of the sea travel industry. As a New York Times story about the crash points out, "While airline pilots are directed and guided by controllers on the ground, sea captains are considered to be in complete control." Company directors - some of whom have little or no experience captaining ships at all - determine ocean travel routes for cruise liners, and sometimes shipping routes these days. On passenger ships, many times safety lessons are treated the same way pre-flight safety instruction is treated on planes - as a nuisance, something that if the passengers miss, they won't miss much.
In short, what few regulations they have for navigational safety amount to complete trust in their leader, that he would never run their ship aground.
As moderate Republicans and former Huntsman backers - and now the last passengers on the Costa Concordia - can tell you, simply trusting your leader not to capsize your vessel is a very poor safety system indeed.
