Clinton: Does management count?
Posted: Monday, March 10, 2008 8:57 AM by Domenico Montanaro
Filed Under:
2008, Clinton
Is it fair to judge Clinton's internal campaign strife as a potential example of what a Clinton White House could look like? Or what do superdelegates think about this, given all the stories about campaign strife the Kerry campaign generated in 2004? The New York Times is the latest big paper to look at Clinton’s management style. "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."
More: "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.”
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And: “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.”
What is that foreign policy experience? The
AP: “To hear Hillary Rodham Clinton tell it now, she had a lot more going on as first lady than she let on at the time… She takes credit for helping bring peace to Northern Ireland, negotiating open borders for refugees fleeing Kosovo, standing up to the Chinese government over women's rights, and flying into Bosnia when it was too dangerous to send the president.
“There is little doubt that Clinton was an exceptionally activist first lady. She was the first to set up shop in a West Wing office alongside other White House policymakers, and immediately was in the thick of domestic policy deliberations, most notably her long and unsuccessful fight for health care reform… But Clinton is taking credit for accomplishing more than some of those who were active in foreign policy during the Clinton years recall.”
The
New Yorker’s Lizza: “To watch Hillary Clinton during the final two weeks of the Ohio and Texas primary campaigns, as she defiantly ignored the pronouncements of her political demise and pounded away at her opponent in one more interview, at one more rally, was to bring to mind Jason or Freddy Krueger or the sitting governor of California, those Hollywood cyborgs and zombies who, despite bullets and stakes and explosions, will not under any circumstances be vanquished.”
The Boston Globe: "In hailing Obama as a possible vice president, the Clintons are reaching out to him and, perhaps more important, to his backers, whose support she would need to defeat John McCain in the November election." More: "The Clintons have charged that the charismatic senator from Illinois lacks the experience to handle an international crisis as president. But since Clinton won the Ohio and Texas primaries, she and her husband have repeatedly touted Obama as a possible running mate." Obama camp response: "It may be the first time in history that the person who is running number two would offer the person running number one the number two position," Tom Daschle said on NBC's "Meet the Press."
Call it what you will by the New York Daily News calls Clinton’s new Obama as VP tack, “Hill’s Chutzpah.” “It's a dream team all right, as in dream on. It's a fantasy because, in the Clintons' pitch, naturally, she is on top of the ticket and Obama is her No. 2. That's rich of her, considering that Obama leads in both the delegate race and the popular vote. Forget those pesky voters - Hillary has declared herself the winner!” More: “The offer of a joint ticket looks like an olive branch, but it's really a knife aimed at cutting Obama down to size. In the words of one Clintonista, ‘It's a way of belittling him’ by suggesting he's not ready to be President and would lose the general election as nominee to John McCain. It's the same attack she has been using all along, though now it's presented as a compliment.”
The Clinton Library "withheld 1,114 pages that archivists said would disclose confidential discussions of advice the former president received from advisers or would violate someone's privacy," the AP reports. "The library's delays in releasing documents have prompted criticism of Hillary Clinton and her husband from her rival for the Democratic nomination for president, Barack Obama, and from Republicans. More: "On his last day in office, President Clinton granted 140 pardons and 36 commutations, many of them controversial. The documents released include dozens of letters Clinton and his advisers received in the months before he left office advocating pardons for Rich and others. Rich had fled the country after being indicted for tax evasion. His wife, Denise, had contributed $450,000 to the Clinton library and more than $1.1 million to the Democratic Party."
Here's another Silencing of Bill story... The last three days "extended a long stretch without a YouTube-worthy moment or sharp remarks that could feed the chattering class and the 24-hour news cycles of the cable networks [from Bill Clinton]," the Boston Globe writes. "The former president has settled into his role as surrogate in chief, extolling the policies and virtues of Hillary Clinton and avoiding snipes aimed at Barack Obama, his wife's foe."
Pennsylvania’s another back-to-the wall primary for Clinton. “If she can't win here, she's done," said a national Democratic strategist from Philadelphia who is staying neutral in the race, per the New York Post. "With the unions, older voters and the party establishment behind her, it's a state where she has to do well."
As for NAFTA-gate, the Canadian government now says “Clinton never gave Canada any secret assurances about the future of NAFTA such as those allegedly offered by Barack Obama's campaign, Prime Minister Stephen Harper's office said Friday.” More: “Sources who overheard that conversation say he specifically mentioned that Canadian diplomats did get assurances from the Clinton camp -- and he never raised Obama's name. That begs the question: why was Clinton's name raised at all?”
