NYT: "Sniping Within Campaign Tarnishes Clinton’s Image"

[milkyway]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/10/us/politics/10clinton.html?hp

<snip>

But even as Mrs. Clinton revived her fortunes last week with victories in Ohio, Rhode Island and Texas, the questions lingered about how she managed her campaign, with the internal sniping and second-guessing undermining her well-cultivated image as a steady-at-the-wheel chief executive surrounded by a phalanx of loyal and efficient aides.

“She hasn’t managed anything as complex as this before; that’s the problem with senators,” said James A. Thurber, a professor of government at American University who is an expert on presidential management. “She wasn’t as decisive as she should have been. And it’s a legitimate question to ask: Under great pressure from two different factions, can she make some hard decisions and move ahead? It seems to just fester. She doesn’t seem to know how to stop it or want to stop it.”

<snip>

Still, interviews with campaign aides, associates and friends suggest that Mrs. Clinton, at least until February, was a detached manager. Juggling the demands of being a candidate, she paid little attention to detail, delegated decisions large and small and deferred to advisers on critical questions. Mrs. Clinton accepted — or seemed unaware of — the intense factionalism and feuding that often paralyzed her campaign and that prevented her aides from reaching consensus on basic questions like what states to fight in and how to go after Mr. Obama, of Illinois.

<snip>

Mrs. Clinton’s top advisers said that while her management style might be untidy, it showed her to be comfortable with conflicting ideas among her aides. They said she had pronounced herself “ready to learn” from her mistakes and was resistant to placing too much power in the hands of a single political adviser in the mold of Karl Rove in President Bush’s two campaigns for the White House.

<more>

__________

Clinton is "ready to learn"? That's interesting. She is an incompetent manager. The only other large enterprise she has managed, her healthcare plan in the early 90's, was also a dismal failure. She is incompetent, relatively inexperienced, and has proven to be an unsteady personality. Not exactly the red-phone leader we're supposed to be looking for.

[Stephanie]

1. She's also proven to be dishonest, and disloyal.

Not a lot there to love.

[hueyshort]

15. Um, any examples?

[milkyway]

18. "Disloyal" as in saying the leading candidate of her own party is not qualified to be commander-

in-chief, while throwing bouquets to the candidate of the opposing party. Not only is that practically unheard of, but the timing is even worse. She's not saying it before voting begins, but after more than three-quarters of the votes are in and we have a leader that is likely to get the nomination. It is hard not to suspect that she wants to damage Obama enough so that, even if he does get the nomination, he loses in November to her BFF McCain so she can then run against him in 2012.

For "dishonest," please reference most any time she opens her mouth.

[TwilightGardener]

2. I thought she was the Day One lady. Guess not.

[Medusa]

3. Ready from Day 1 to lie, smear, distort

that's what "ready from Day 1" really means.

[hueyshort]

17. I think Obama is the little Liar

He is the one who told the people of Ohio one thing, then
phoned Canada to tell them his speeches were just political rhetoric.
Then denied all of this to the press.
Then the Canadain government proved him a hypocrite and a liar.

[milkyway]

20. Get the facts of your smear straight. Even the Clinton campaign doesn't claim that Obama phoned the

Canadians. It was an economics advisor who spoke with them. And don't bother to mention that all that was said was what Obama had been saying--they would want to renegotiate NAFTA to improve the labor and environmental standards. And don't bother to mention that the Clinton campaign was saying the same thing to the Canadians.

[TwilightGardener]

29. LOL! You are about as informed as my dog. Less so.

[Ichingcarpenter]

4. Day late and a dollar short

Her new campaign slogan.

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

28. Hell, it took Hillary how many primaries just to get warmed up?

[DJ13]

5. If you cant run a campaign how can you run a country?

:shrug:

[Samantha]

19. That's exactly MY question

This is what I have been repeatedly asking, and now you come forth with the same question. I hope we hear this question repeated frequently from now on -- it's an obvious problem she has.

[BeyondGeography]

6. “She hasn’t managed anything as complex as this before; that’s the problem with senators.”

Not all Senators, obviously.

[Cha]

16. Nice pic of the Senator who has experience

on the ground and can manage a Presidential campaign the way he can manage our country from Day Numero Uno!

I cringe everytime I read "hilary won Texas" :wtf: why can't the m$$$m get it right? Why do they have to be so behind?

I wonder if the European countries are writing about this with the accurate information?

[saltpoint]

7. Indeed those questions do linger.

Indeed.

[RamboLiberal]

8. Who does this remind you of?

Again and again, the senator was portrayed as a manager who valued loyalty and familiarity over experience and expertise.

[sniffa]

9. Whoever is an Obama supporter, please leave the room

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYu68SHWh64

[XemaSab]

22. Brilliant!

:D

[sniffa]

23. Thanks, but I meant to post this one

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzyrXIx3Tpg

[XemaSab]

32. Even better!

:toast:

[thevoiceofreason]

25. I hadn't seen that yet -- only heard about it. Classic.

[VolcanoJen]

10. Here's an uncommonly candid Harold Ickes comment we'll hear about, rather lots

A senior adviser, Harold Ickes, joined the campaign full-time in January as Mrs. Clinton’s aides began to realize that the contest was not going the way they had planned. Mr. Ickes cautioned about drawing firm conclusions about her from this period, when she faced the demands of being a candidate.

“It’s hard to draw conclusions about her management style,” he said, “because she is, in fact, not the manager of her campaign.”

[BigAnth]

36. That was the best quote from the whole article.

[Cha]

11. What "image"? The only image

I have of her is a power hungry politician who is willing to send our Soldiers into a war zone without reading the 90 page NIE.

And she's proven herself to do every dirty little thing mark penn tells her to do to win at any cost and what do they care about the Democratic party anyway? Compared to themselves?

[powergirl]

12. This is terrifying - this is how Bush ran the country

"Mrs. Clinton showed a tendency toward an insular management style, relying on a coterie of aides who have worked for her for years, her aides and associates said. Her choice of lieutenants — and her insistence on staying with them even when friends urged her to shake things up — was blamed by some associates for the campaign’s woes. Again and again, the senator was portrayed as a manager who valued loyalty and familiarity over experience and expertise."

Just like Bush - loyalty before what is best for the country.

[milkyway]

13. The day after Iowa: “I’ll do whatever you guys need me to do.” The stream of subtle racial

stereotypes starting coming from the Clinton camp before New Hampshire, not before South Carolina as has now been popularly believed. "Whatever you guys need me to do." Not exactly ready to stand on principles and morals. This, in fact, sounds like after losing Iowa she was ready and willing to do anything necessary to win, which would include exploiting racial divisions and stereotypes, making Obama into this year's Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson. Let the mud-slinging begin and we'll win this thing with the racist vote.

__________

The day after her loss in the Iowa caucuses, Mrs. Clinton took command of a long meeting in New Hampshire. “I’ll do whatever you guys need me to do,” she said, a participant recalled. “I get the message.”

[dave29]

14. ready to learn, or ready day one?

Now I am confused

[Pirate Smile]

21. Oh, Lord, and she is supposedly running on competence.

[frazzled]

24. Ready to Learn on Day One!

There's a mixed message for you. And I did not create it. It's a quote the great herself, according to her advisers: "Ready to Learn."

So she's ready to learn and ready on day one. Put them together and what do you get?

[City Lights]

26. Hillary, exit stage right, please.

The thought of this woman running the country is terrifying.

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

27. Hillary tarnished herself.

[berni_mccoy]

30. She Had EVERY Advantage moving into this Campaign, and she completely FAILED.

She has no excuse. She is a Failure.

[TheZug]

31. How much more tarnished can it get?

[milkyway]

33. In all areas Hillary claims as the reason to vote for her, I'll take Obama.

COMPETENCE: Hillary is clearly not able to manage, while Obama has managed his campaign brilliantly, using the organizational skills developed on the streets of Chicago, tapping the abilities of hundreds of thousands of volunteers. In a voting registration drive he led in 1992 that amazed Chicago, he trained his staff on how to train volunteers, who then worked the phones and the streets to get out the vote in unprecedented numbers, helping Bill Clinton to win Illinois and Carol Mosley-Braun to become the second black Senator since Reconstruction. This same kind of voter registration drive, manned mainly by volunteers, is happening right now in Pennsylvania.

While Hillary spent the months leading up to Iowa preparing for a coronation, Obama had volunteers laying tripwires all across the nation. It was a form of asymmetrical warfare that would be needed to defeat an opponent with overwhelming built-in advantages, a plan that supplemented the traditional boots-on-the-ground organizing with the most technologically advanced internet campaign yet. Joe Trippi, when asked to compare the Obama internet campaign to that of Howard Dean's, said that if the Dean campaign was the Wright Brothers, the Obama internet campaign is a Mars landing. While Clinton stuck to her big-state strategy heavily dependent on television, the campaign model of the late twenieth century, Obama beat her by other means. It was a plan so brilliantly devised and executed that a black man with a Muslim-sounding name is now the favorite to become the next President of the United States.

EXPERIENCE: Clinton was at the Children's Defense Fund for less than a year, failed the DC bar, and settled in Arkansas as a corporate lawyer for fifteen years at the oldest firm west of the Mississippi. Not experience I care about or desire in a politician. She was First Lady of Arkansas and First Lady of the U.S., where her biggest undertaking was to formulate and pass a healthcare plan. Her spectacular mismanagement led to healthcare reform going down in flames, and the Dems losing both houses of Congress for the first time in years.

While she was enjoying her time in corporate boardrooms, Obama spent years as a community organizer, taught constitutional law at one of the nation's leading universities, and became a state senator. I prefer his experience dealing directly with people and solving their problems on a local level, both as an organizer and as a state senator.

TEMPERAMENT: Obama has proven to be a calm figure not easily rattled. Hillary has shown the strains of pressure during this campaign, bordering on the bizarre with her sudden mood shifts and displaying an erratic personality unfit for the Oval Office.

JUDGEMENT: IWR.

[milkyway]

34. morning kick.

[workinclasszero]

35. Hillary: a steady-at-the-wheel chief executive

for the rethug's.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZsYWiywdCA&feature=related