Civil War in Hillaryland

Yesterday a front page Washington Post story outlined the extent to which internal squabbling has overtaken the Clinton campaign. Throughout much of the election cycle there has been a lot of attention paid to potential rivalries within the camp; as of late, those internal fights have been playing out in a much more public fashion.

What we know so far about the Clinton campaign is discomforting. We know that Clinton's campaign manager, Patti Solis Doyle, remained in her position long after having squandered the entire campaign war chest. We know that Mark Penn, chief strategist of the campaign, has alienated nearly everyone he works with, often getting into profanity-laden arguments with fellow advisers. We know he is "openly despised" by many senior Clinton officials. We know that, in the face of heavy criticism, Mark Penn has tried to shift the blame, maintaining that he is just an outside adviser, with no real control of the campaign.

We know that Harold Ickes is eager to argue the point in front of microphones, where he has ungracefully laid the blame squarely on Penn. We know that, at the Arlington headquarters, the tension has built so high that Penn and Mandy Grunwald, Hillary's ad maker, got into a yelling match that prompted the political director to leave the room. And we know that we know that because it was leaked.

We know the media team fights with the field team, each blaming the other for Clinton's February losses. Perhaps worst of all, The Washington Post confirmed what many Democrats had feared the most: in South Carolina, Bill Clinton was out of the campaign's control.

A good measure of the relative functionality of a campaign is to watch how often inside information is leaked to the press. That we know as much as we do about the internal strife in Hillaryland suggests that the press is being wielded as a weapon in the middle of an all out civil war.

Yet with the wind at her back, following strong victories in Ohio and Texas, Hillary may question whether any of this should really matter. It does.

Hillary is often painted as a technocrat, stronger on the details than Obama and more likely to manage the country effectively. We are led to believe that she would be as capable a chief of staff as she would a commander in chief. But while her campaign comes unspooled in the pages of the Washington Post, she has yet to give any indication of the desire or ability to take the wheel and steady the ship.

In many ways, her management style is reminiscent of President Bush. She has surrounded herself with people whose top qualification is their loyalty. Patti Solis Doyle, the incompetent campaign manager, was allowed to stay in her position for far too long, primarily out of loyalty. A similar note can be played with respect to much of her campaign staff, many of whom would have already been fired by nearly any other candidate.

There are also tints of a young Bill Clinton in Hillary's management style. His early White House has been notoriously described as a dorm-room-style setting with no clear chain of authority and a set of aggressive warring factions. It was this poorly conceived structure that contributed to President Clinton's overstretched agenda, often with contradicting messages, rarely with a long-term framework in mind. In 1994, the consequences of flailing leadership meant the Republican control of Congress.

Will Hillary Clinton manage her White House in the way she has managed her presidential campaign? The question seems fair. Will she instead run it like she did her 2006 Senate campaign? Patti Solis Doyle drastically overspent in that race too. Will she manage the White House like she did the health care reforms of 1994? With those, she ignored political realities and helped polarize her own party by refusing the input of key members. Is this what we can expect from a second Clinton presidency?

Perhaps we should be concerned with the more immediate future. Is Hillary going to run a general election campaign the way she ran her primary race? After all, her campaign thus far has demonstrated the inability to make quick and effective recalibrations. They have failed to rein in Bill Clinton, and have been unable to build strong organizational capacity in a number of states. Their decision-making apparatus is controlled by spiteful aides who seem more enveloped in their own in-fighting than the needs of the campaign. Can Democrats really afford Mark Penn and Harold Ickes throwing temper tantrums through the fall?

These are not easy questions for the Clinton campaign to answer. But they are important questions for the voters and super delegates to consider. Harold Ickes was recently quoted as saying, "She's better than her campaign." This is undoubtedly true. But if after four to eight years of a Clinton presidency, she maintains her management style, we may all be shrugging with disappointment, knowing, full well, that she was better than her presidency.

Comments

[AuntSally]

Clintod did not win Texas; Obama will win Texas. It's a two-phase competition, and Obama is winning big in the caucus phase -- enought to prompt the state Democratic party to predict that, in the end, Obama will win.

[DRHoen]

No worries. If the Clintons are nominated they will lose to McCain anyways. This is why I think they will be nominated. The Democrats can't miss this once-in-a-­generation opportunity to [expletive] up. I only wish I were a Republican so I could enjoy the show, rather than being alternately infuriated and depressed. Thanks, Clintons, for all you have done.

[terraprieto]

The WashPost article ends by quoting an unnamed Clinton adviser: "There was an arrogant attitude on the part of teh campaign for many months. And now we're in the fight for our lives."

The incompetence and arrogance of one person, Hillary Clinton, threatens to tear the Democratic Party asunder and lead to certain defeat in the fall.

Because she couldn't even be bothered to fire up Bill's enormous database of democrats and supporters and TRY to organize and contest the caucuses, she now whines that such contests are unfair and unimportant, and she is ENTITLED to win the nomination anyway. What a selfish child.

She is most certainly NOT ready to be president.

[terraprieto]

The WashPost article ends by quoting an unnamed Clinton adviser: "There was an arrogant attitude on the part of teh campaign for many months. And now we're in the fight for our lives."

The incompetence and arrogance of one person, Hillary Clinton, threatens to tear the Democratic Party asunder and lead to certain defeat in the fall.

Because she couldn't even be bothered to fire up Bill's enormous database of democrats and supporters and TRY to organize and contest the caucuses, she now whines that such contests are unfair and unimportant, and she is ENTITLED to win the nomination anyway. What a selfish child.

She is most certainly NOT ready to be president.

[Liberal2]

Ya know what? All you posters, and most of the bloggers on HuffPost are a bunch of senior citizen children, afraid to discuss a democrat without using childish insults: "monster", "criminal", "sleezebags", etc.

The problem with our democratic candidates is that neither is a suitable candidate in the FDR class. And that's why the mud is flying, both sides are attempting to direct attention on the other's faults tohide thei own. Their only real qualification for election is neither is a republican. And that's all that counts. All the faults of both candidates, their mistakes, still make them far better presidential candidates than any republican.

[PioneerKing]

Mr. Loewe:

What are you saying that you want another paranoid megalomaniac in the White House who would refuse to ever admit when she’s wrong? Is that what you foresee as the best that America can do?

[MrBU]

Of course, none of these matter, if they don't commit any public gaffes and Hillary manages to stay relatively unscathed and above the fray (I mean low blows to Obama or the Democratic party count as above the fray, no?).

Although I'd love to see them implode and take Hillary with them before the PA primaries..

[efranklin]

We have to be weary of a candidate inclined to install old buddies over the most competent professionals, and of candidates that flush money down the toilet. Remember the millions of dollars she dumped the night before Super Tuesday on her Hallmark channel "open forum" fiasco? Next time it will be *our* precious tax dollars going down the tubes. And Obama's "Yes we can" YouTube speech/music video? $0.00 charged to the Obama campaign. Who's the better CEO here?

[lovethesinner]

"Washington Post confirmed what many Democrats had feared the most: in South Carolina, Bill Clinton was out of the campaign's control."

It isn't just Democrats that are scared of what Bill's role as "first lady" will be like, it's the whole nation. It's sad that the founders didn't see this loophole in twarting the divine right of Kings, but it's there, and the really scary part of Hillary's candidacy is her inability to define Bill's role.

In a lot of ways, the "Monica" impeachment was more disgraceful than Watergate on a national level. It brought the presidency down to a level of selfishness that was worse than paranoia. It was demeaning on a much more personal level.

In a lot of ways, Hillary seems to have forgotten that. Or, doesn't mind taking us all back there to accomplish her goals.

What price victory? I'm afraid we're all about to find out.

Obama/Webb '08

[mommadona]

"In many ways, her management style is reminiscent of President Bush. She has surrounded herself with people whose top qualification is their loyalty."

EXACTLY.

That is the point.

SHE IS NO DIFFERENT.

"We" don't need another Dynasty/Wannabe Royalty Margaret Thatcher playing Queen.

She will destroy the Democratic party to win, because that is all that counts.

[deadbolt]

It shouldn't be said that Hillary in McCain lite. It's really the other way around, McCain is Hillary lite.

[LewisR]

The press had so much material written in advance of the Texas & Ohio votes to show why Clinton lost. Once she won, they had to do something will at that content - just a lil' rewriting and pow, she won cuz they were fightin' mad. Big deal.

[FullChat]

Actually, Obama won Texas.

[Kordo]

I'm reminded of Martin Sheen's line in "Wall Street" - " I don't go to bed with no whore, and I don't wake up with no whore, and that's how I live with myself. I don't know how you do it."

I don't know how Hillary does it. As for all you Clinton supporters, I don't know how you justify it either. Maybe you really like scorched earth tactics. Maybe you do think she would be better at the job. A good woman, Samantha Power (who has actually put her money where her mouth is) got booted today for a shitty comment she should not have made. Your candidate shows no signs on any such principles. She might even be able to slither her way to the nomination, god help us. The cold fact remains that John McCain and the Republicans want nothing else in life but to get her in the GE. Remember your support of her if that happens. Her behavior is on your heads.

[Liberal2]

Regarding Ms. Powers, her sin was not the term "monster' (although that really wasn't called for), but using it in an interview with a non-American reporter. If she wasn't smart enough to know better, she wasn't smart enough to work on a campaign.

For example, Senator Clinton isn't a monster for voting "aye" on the legislation gving the US president the authority to use force against Saddam, even Bill Clinton had had the same authority as witness Clinton's use of cruise missiles and bombs. The monster was the US voter who voted for Bush.

[FLB]

"Can Democrats really afford Mark Penn and Harold Ickes throwing temper tantrums through the fall?" NO, we can't afford this nightmare. Which is why Al Gore, Nancy Pelosi, Bill Richardson, Joe Biden, and John Edwards need to step up, show some courage and leadership, and dismantle her destructive candidacy now. It's real easy: just publicly endorse Barack Obama.

[Lalo]

Mr. Loewe: It's great to know that you can take someone else's story and run with it.

But please explain why it is wrong to have people on your team who have different opinions and argue about them? Most presidents, starting with Lincoln had deliberately created such teams. It's not easy for team members, but it keeps you aware of different options. At the very least, you're not running yourself into the ground with the tired "change/hope" strategy that suddenly seems to have Obama in the corner.

Apart from this, your article sounds like a typical excercise in pro-Obama spin.