I know it seems a geological eon ago, but do you remember the resignation of Clinton campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle? In the wake of Clinton's major Wisconsin defeat, I remembered how Doyle never told Clinton about the campaign's massive hemorrhaging of cash. And how Clinton similarly kept Solis in the dark when she took out her $5 million personal loan. Given that Hillary Clinton's campaign has now been reduced to a nonstop mantra of "ready to lead on day one," it made me wonder what that incident reveals about her competence, transparency and trust--the essence of her ability to lead.
I'm no campaign insider, but from everything I can see, Clinton follows a discomfortingly familiar path in surrounding herself with people who are so intimidated they won't stand up and disagree with her, and won't tell her bad news. Personal loyalty is fine, but we've had plenty of that in the current administration, with disastrous results. The charges and counter-charges around Doyle's departure suggest either that Clinton's built a team that is sharply lacking in basic skills, like high school math, or that she has a character that makes people afraid to challenge her, even people like Solis who have known her for years.
Think about her foreign policy advisors. As political scientist Stephen Zunes explores, almost every one of them supported the war in Iraq, (while Obama's overwhelmingly opposed it), and many have spoken out on supporting the Petraeus "surge." Had Clinton surrounded herself with Iraq war skeptics, this might cast a shadow on her own stand. But those she's selected use the same rationalizations,
In fact, Clinton has a consistent pattern of refusing to admit mistakes. Had she flat out admitted her Iraq war vote was wrong, she might well now be the presumptive nominee, but she chose instead to evade its implications through an endless succession of rationalizations and technicalities. She did the same thing with her vote on a regressive bankruptcy bill, which she now claims didn't matter since the bill ended up not passing. And she's doing the same thing with NAFTA. Bill Clinton staked much of his political capital in making it the centerpiece of his first term achievements, in the process creating so much anger and backlash among labor and environmental activists that many stayed home and helped the Gingrich Republicans sweep to their 1994 upset victory. Now, Hillary is saying, she'd always privately argued against against it, so bears no responsibility for its hollowing out of America's industrial base.
So I worry that if she does get in, we're gong to end up with one more president who lives in an insular bubble of yes-men -- whatever their gender. I worry about the competence question -- raised first by Clinton's squandering of her massive lead, and just underscored by a report that her quintessentially professional campaign failed to file enough delegates in the critical state of Pennsylvania to actually take full advantage of the votes they could gain. Successful campaigns don't always correlate with successful presidencies. But if you're running on the basis of experience, it's not a good sign when you end up in such a state of melt-down that your sole recourse is endless character attacks and a refusal to gracefully acknowledge defeat.
Paul Rogat Loeb is the author of The Impossible Will Take a Little While: A Citizen's Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear, named the #3 political book of 2004 by the History Channel and the American Book Association. His previous books include Soul of a Citizen: Living With Conviction in a Cynical Time. See www.paulloeb.org To receive his articles directly email sympa@lists.onenw.org with the subject line: subscribe paulloeb-articles
WHAT YOU SEE IS WHAT YOU GET
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Lady Hill treats her opponents with contempt. . .
so naturally, the insiders will always tell her what she wants to hear
Lady Hill is not fond of truth. . .
"I did not have sex with that woman"
(oops, sorry, that was Sir Billy)
"I did not vote for the Iraq War"
"I voted for Bush to use dipolmacy" (hellooo, you're kiddin', right?)
the Billarys just have an obsession
w/ the WH
and to think of Sir Billy sittin' in the WH
with nothin' to do
gosh
I'd much rather have Michelle as the FIRST SPOUSE
.
"she specifically surrounds herself with people who are so intimidated they can't even stand up and disagree with her, or tell her bad news."
None of us can really say what her motives are. But Hillary, for all of her faults, is too smart to deliberately surround herself with true believers. I don't think it's deliberate at all.
No, I think it's more a case of that "quintessentially professional campaign staff" being anything but.
And I think it's more a case of her Repugnican roots showing through - and trusting too much in all that corporate bullshit as being the endgame for all professionalism.
As for me, I've always hoped we would get to see the real Hillary, without all the trimmings that she's always had accompanying her.
But instead, with very few exceptions, it's always been the packaged Hillary, courtesy of all that "quintessentially professional" handling.
I've disagreed with many of Hillary's positions. I've disagreed with many of Hillary's votes.
But her biggest problem, in my humble opinion, has always been her handlers.
And, again in my humble opinion, I don't think you have to worry too much about what all those mistakes would mean if she were to win the nomination.
Because I have always believed that those handlers would stop that from happening, just by their bumbling incompetence.
It gives me no joy to be right about that. I think, for all her flaws, Hillary is an American who has dedicated her life to her country.
She won't win the big prize, at least not this time around.
But she still deserves respect for what she has tried give to her country, even when it's not been what I wanted.
I actually have a lot of other criticisms of her, in other pieces, at
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-loeb/
What's so interesting is how Hillary fanatics (and I distinguish them from people who simply decide to vote for her) continue to reduce Obama to a couple of glib phrases on hope. If they'd actually listen to his speeches, go to his website, or read his powerful books (especially Dreams From My Father), they'd see an individual of some pretty powerful substance.
But like the campaign itself, they're resorting to increasingly desperate mudslinging as it looks as if Hillary will lose.
Obama got 18,000 new donors in just two hours after his Wisconsin win. He had been previously averaging about 7,000 new donors per day. Outside funding for the Clinton campaign will be drying up. The Democratic party will not let her hurt their chances in the general election. They want the White House and they want to increase their majorities in Congress. If they have to destroy her political career to get her to stop smeering Obama with lies then they will do so. If she plays nice then she will be able to stay in the game for another two weeks so she can get clobbered in Ohio and Texas.