Inside the Clinton campaign

If you've been staying up nights wondering what went wrong with Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, you'll want to read Joshua Green's impressively detailed account in the September issue of the Atlantic Monthly, accompanied by extraordinary documentation in the form of campaign e-mails and other insider correspondence.

Green writes:

Above all, this irony emerges: Clinton ran on the basis of managerial competence -- on her capacity, as she liked to put it, to “do the job from Day One.” In fact, she never behaved like a chief executive, and her own staff proved to be her Achilles’ heel. What is clear from the internal documents is that Clinton’s loss derived not from any specific decision she made but rather from the preponderance of the many she did not make. Her hesitancy and habit of avoiding hard choices exacted a price that eventually sank her chances at the presidency.

Irony, huh? Not a more technical, barnyard term?

Well, why quibble. It's a great article, well worth your time.

The picture that emerges is one of a roomful of extraordinary, specialized political talents, all working for a woman who did not have the ability to think clearly or to think ahead. Senator Clinton watched and waffled and put off the hard decisions until it was too late, then screamed at people and ordered them to fix it.

And it's everybody else's fault. The staff. The press. The sexists.

Anyone who has ever worked in a mid-sized or larger company will recognize the type: the overwhelmed manager who is one promotion past his or her level of competence.

This sort of person doesn't know that he's incompetent. He believes he is as good at his job as anyone could possibly be. That's why the many problems and conflicts that occur on his watch are attributed not to his own failure to anticipate likely events, but to outside forces. You can always recognize the overwhelmed manager when you hear him say, "No one could have anticipated that," "Everyone makes mistakes," and "Anyone would have done the same thing."

Another characteristic of overwhelmed managers is the tendency to promote people who flatter them while making life a living hell for people who tell them the truth.

It's not difficult to see how that turns out.

Hillary Clinton's supporters really ought to simmer down and stop talking about open conventions and roll-call votes. She's not up to the job of president, and two in a row like this could kill us all.


Copyright 2008

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