FORTUNE — House Speaker John Boehner addressed the party faithful here in Tampa this evening, telling a story about his old family business that was supposed to serve as a metaphor for President Obama.
Here was the gist:
“My dad and my uncles owned a bar outside of Cincinnati. I worked there growing up, mopping floors, waiting tables. Believe me when I say I learned how to deal with every character who walked in the door. So let’s say right now, a guy walked into our bar and said, ‘the private sector is doing fine.’ Well, do you know what we’d do? That’s right: we’d throw him out. … If a guy walked into our bar … and said, ‘if you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that,’ do you know what we’d do? Throw him out.”
Really Mr. Speaker? You’d throw out paying customers because you didn’t agree with their economic assessments? That may be good politics (literally starve the opposition), but it doesn’t strike me as terribly good business.
I once worked at a bar, and am pretty sure that I would have been fired for doing such a thing. And then the bar owner probably would have bought the guy one on the house.
Hopefully latter speakers, including Mitt Romney, are able to articulate a pro-business agenda that doesn’t involve denying service to customers…
Sign up for Dan’s daily email newsletter on deals and deal-makers: GetTermSheet.com
