Spare Small Business the Campaign Spotlight

Helping small business has been a dominant theme in this year’s presidential campaign. While the crush is nothing new—politicians have sung the praises of entrepreneurs at election time for decades—it feels like the nominees are pursuing them even more than usual this time around. From the convention speeches to the campaign stops, Barack Obama and Mitt Romney each have claimed that they are the best candidate to help small companies get back on track, and return their investment and hiring to historical levels.

It isn’t just the nominees, of course. At the Republican National Convention, House Speaker John Boehner repeated the message that small business owners, not the government, deserve the credit for building their businesses. His fellow Republicans, almost to a person, invoked their support for entrepreneurs in their speeches. At their convention, the Democrats gave airtime to the owner of Port City Brewing Co. in Alexandria, Va., who told the crowd how he got the financing he needed through a Small Business Administration loan program he credited the president with putting in place. Not to be outdone, the agency’s chief, Karen Mills, told the crowd: “From day one, President Obama has made small businesses a top priority in his White House.”