Missteps Mar Clinton's Competency Message

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/04/09/politics/politico/main4002927.shtml

Politico: Shake-Ups, Miscalculations And Financial Woes Cause Some To Question Her Leadership Ability

April 9, 2008

Hillary Rodham Clinton wants voters to decide the nomination based on who can coolly and competently run the country. She had better hope they don’t study her recent campaign too closely for the answer.

Clinton has overseen two major staff shake-ups in two months. She has left a trail of unpaid bills and unhappy vendors and had to loan her own campaign $5 million to keep it afloat in January. Her campaign badly underestimated her main adversary, Barack Obama, miscalculated the importance of organizing caucus states and was caught flat-footed after failing to lock up the nomination on Super Tuesday.

It would be easy to dismiss all of this as fairly conventional political stumbling - if she hadn’t made her supreme readiness and managerial competence the central issue of her presidential campaign.

But since she has, a growing number of Democrats are comparing the Clinton and Obama campaigns - their first real exercise in executive leadership - and rendering harsh assessments of her stewardship.

In twin columns in Tuesday’s Washington Post, left-of-center columnists Peter Beinart and E.J. Dionne Jr. condemned Clinton’s overall management of the campaign and inability to build a durable message and infrastructure. It’s a common theme in Democratic circles these days.

“Any time you are involved in a long campaign, there are going to be major substantive and procedural gaffes,” says former Democratic Rep. David Bonior, an uncommitted superdelegate who served as the campaign manager to John Edwards. “The question is how a campaign handles those gaffes and how a candidate handles them. And I think it’s fair to say that Sen. Obama has handled problems better than Sen. Clinton.”

FULL story at link.

[stellanoir]

1. Her enormous debt has scarcely been covered by the corporate media

who are too busy focusing on kitchen sinks, and gutter balls, than anything really substantiative.

Good leadership doesn't accrue debt.

[rocktivity]

4. And look at how she misunderestimated Bill's income

In her disclosure forms for the U.S. Senate and her presidential campaign, Hillary Clinton...listed the former President’s compensation as “over $1,000” each from...billionaire investor Ronald Burkle and consumer-data executive Vinod Gupta...The Clintons received as much as $15 million from Burkle’s Yucaipa investment firm from 2003 through 2007...Bill Clinton’s earnings from Gupta’s InfoUSA...(were) $400,000 last year alone...

It is not clear why Sen. Clinton low-balled her husband’s compensation from these...sources when she provided precise figures for his many speeches in her disclosure forms. Broad ranges of figures are permitted...but a category as vague as “over $1,000” is not included as a typical option...
link

You can't accuse her of lying because the actual earnings were indeed over $1,000. But what's the explanation for her missing by so wide a margin? It doesn't speak well of her organizational skills, fiscal responsibility, or even her marriage!

:headbang:
rocknation

[ORDem]

2. Damn straight. She's gotten pretty much a free ride on her bungling campaign, whilst

Obama's competency on so many fronts gets panned.

:dem:

[FrenchieCat]

3. Even his extraordinary fundraising power gets panned......

cause he dares spend it! :eyes: