Staff "Loyalty" to Hillary Rodham Clinton

More and more these days I am hearing people say that the reason Hillary Rodham Clinton lost the Democratic nomination is that she hired people who were "loyal" rather than people who were competent for her campaign. First of all, she hasn't lost--I put her chances at 28%, Barack Obama's chances at 70%, and the rest of the field's chances at 2%.

Second--well, let's listen to what these "loyal" campaign workers, aides, and advisors have to say. Here they speak to two Washington Post stenographers:

Clinton Soldiers On Despite Setbacks: Anne E. Kornblut and Shailagh Murray: Inside Clinton's inner circle on Friday, the feeling was that the Thursday night debate in Austin was unlikely to slow Obama's momentum from 11 straight primary and caucus victories. Some supporters said they had discussed how to raise with Clinton the subject of withdrawing from the race should she fail to win decisively on March 4. One option was to wait a day or two and then dispatch emissaries to former president Clinton to urge him to make the case.

One adviser, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak freely, said Obama's 17-point Wisconsin victory on Tuesday had started to sink in as a decisive blow, given that the state had been viewed weeks earlier as a level playing field. "The mathematical reality at that point became impossible to ignore," the adviser said. "There's not a lot of denial left at this point.... She knows where things are going. It's pretty clear she has a big decision. But it's daunting. It's still hard to accept."...

Here they speak to Patrick Healy:

Somber Clinton Soldiers On as the Horizon Darkens: Over take-out meals and late-night drinks, some regrets and recriminations have set in... several advisers have now concluded that they were not smart to use former President Bill Clinton as much as they did, that "his presence, aura and legacy caused national fatigue with the Clintons," in the words of one senior adviser who spoke on condition of anonymity to assess the campaign candidly....

Some aides said Mr. Penn and the former campaign manager, Patti Solis Doyle, had conceived and executed a terribly flawed campaign....

Her advisers said internal polls showed a very tough race to win the Texas primary -- a contest that no less than Mr. Clinton has said is a "must win."... [S]ome are burning out. Morale is low. After 13 months of dawn-to-dark seven-day weeks, the staff is exhausted. Some have taken to going home early -- 9 p.m. -- turning off their BlackBerrys, and polishing off bottles of wine, several senior staff members said.

Some advisers have been heard yelling at close friends and colleagues.... Mr. Penn and the campaign advertising chief, Mandy Grunwald, had a screaming match over strategy.... Others have taken several days off, despite it being crunch time.... And some of her major fund-raisers have begun playing down their roles, asking reporters to refer to them simply as "donors," to try to rein in their image as unfailingly loyal...

Joshua Green: [Patti] Solis Doyle... began as Clinton’s personal scheduler in 1991 (and who, as it happens, coined the term “Hillaryland”) was Clinton’s alter ego... the most revealing thing about Solis Doyle is her oft-repeated line: “When I’m speaking, Hillary is speaking.” It is revealing both because it is true and because it conveys—and even flaunts—an arrogance that I think is the key to understanding all that has gone wrong for the Clinton campaign.... It’s not unfair that she lost her job; but it is unfair that no other senior staffers appear to be in danger of losing theirs....

As much as Clinton touts her own “executive experience” and judgment, she made Solis Doyle her campaign manager because of Solis Doyle’s loyalty, rather than her skill, despite a trail of available evidence suggesting she was unsuited for the role... rivalry and factionalism in Hillaryland.... Tensions flared between advisers such as Penn and Mandy Grunwald, her media consultant, who wanted her to stick to the issues, and others, such as Jewson and Harold Ickes, who thought she should confront her chief shortcoming--the notion that she was power-hungry and calculating.... The battle between the camps intensified to the point that it began to go public... someone leaked Penn’s internal polling data to The New York Times Magazine. Penn and Ickes regularly erupted into shouting matches and eventually... stopped speaking to each other....

After the [senate] race, Solis Doyle was put in charge of fund-raising and later became campaign manager for Clinton’s Senate reelection bid in 2006... many of the staff members who worked under her left or were forced out, including several high-powered members of Clinton’s inner circle, such as Kelly Craighead and Evelyn Lieberman, the deputy chief of staff to Bill Clinton famous for banishing Monica Lewinsky to the Pentagon. The frequent turnover in the fund-raising shop was a significant measure of Solis Doyle’s unpopularity. Clinton staffers are notably loyal, and turnover among them tends to be much lower than it is among the staffs of other politicians. Fund-raising under Solis Doyle was a glaring exception, chalking up the kind of body count you’d expect from an episode of The Sopranos. She was infamous among her colleagues for referring to herself as “the queen bee” and for her habit of watching daytime soap operas in her office. One frequent complaint among donors and outside advisers was that Solis Doyle often did not return calls or demonstrate the attention required in her position.

Concerns about Solis Doyle have preoccupied many in the campaign for several years. Clinton insiders say that her campaign chairman, Terry McAuliffe, launched an unsuccessful bid to remove Solis Doyle while on vacation with the Clintons two years ago. Two top campaign officials told me that Maggie Williams, Hillary’s former chief of staff (and, as of Sunday, her campaign manager), also sought and failed to have Solis Doyle removed two years ago. Last year, some of Bill Clinton’s former advisers, known as the “White Boys,” lobbied to oust her, too....

[A]bove all, Clinton prizes loyalty and discipline, and Solis Doyle demonstrated both traits, if little else.... By all accounts, Solis Doyle’s firing became imminent after the first loss, as the extent of the damage sank in.... She’d been dispatched to Iowa to oversee operations in the final weeks before the caucuses, and Clinton still finished third. She’d been placed in charge of the campaign’s relationship with John Kerry and hoped to get an endorsement, but he’d chosen to back Obama. And of course, the campaign had hemorrhaged money, which Solis Doyle had managed to conceal.... Solis Doyle’s departure took a near-mutiny to bring about. Williams and Lieberman left their jobs last week; this finally seemed to have influenced Clinton to oust Solis Doyle...

The senior HRC aides who are Green's, Healy's, Kornblut's, and Murray's sources--well, "loyal" is not how I would describe them. Their candidate still has a 30% chance of winning, and they are diminishing that chance by dishing "campaign in turmoil" dirt to reporters in the hope that it will get a knife stuck in the back of one of their competitors for future White House jobs and in the hope of gaining reporter points that they can use in some way at some future date.

I've seen this before. There are two kinds of people who get involved in politics--those who care about the substance of policy, and those who want to get White House Mess privileges, or as a consolation prize become media celebrities. The first kind--the policy people--will be loyal to a politician as long as he or she is trying his or her best to achieve the shared policy goals. The second kind--the spinmasters--will be loyal to a politician as long as he or she is a winner who favors them. If a politician stops looking like a winner, or if a politician starts favoring others for what they hoped would be their west wing job, they will jump ship as fast as they can--and you will start seeing the "infighting" stories.

The moral? A politician with an ideological policy compass is best off not hiring spinmasters as his or her senior aides. Hire people who care about the substance of policy instead.

Comments

[Rob]

Also if Clinton does lose, it will be treated as huge upset (though I think her chances were always overstated). Someone will take the blame and a bunch of people are pushing their enemies forward to be the one left holding the bag. Now if it ends up being Mark Penn its deserved, anyone else (say a campaign manager who was already being made the fall guy) not deserved.

[AndrewBW]

So what does it say about HRC that she hired spinmeisters, rather than people who cared about the substance of policy?

[Arnold Evans]

Intrade thinks she has a 15-20% chance of winning. Obama's campaign manager says based on the number of delegates she needs to win, she needs blowouts pretty much everywhere. There is maybe a 5% chance of that happening. Maybe, at most 5%. With one debate left, polls becoming tightening and less money 5%, is probably generous.

You thinking she has a 30% chance of winning has no impact on the reality that Hillary's staffers live in. They live in a reality probably closer to intrade's if not less.

Maybe Hillary 2008 could have beaten Kerry 2004 or Gore 2000, it's very hard to say. In December 2007 she had more money, a big lead in the polls, universal name recognition and the active participation of the most popular Democrat of this generation. The nomination was hers to lose and she lost it.

I don't think it can be argued that Mark Penn is anywhere near David Plouffe's equal at campaign strategy. The idea that Hillary has kept him on and even hired him based on loyalty rather than talent is not far fetched.

[Chris Brown]

"More and more these days I am hearing people say that the reason Hillary Rodham Clinton lost the Democratic nomination is that she hired people who were "loyal" rather than people who were competent for her campaign."

Heck of a job Brownie, eh, eh, eh.

Given all of his faults, President Clinton had the good judgment to hire competent folks to manage the federal government. Bush hired cronies and loyalists.

Senator Clinton deserves to lose. Why, for instance, wasn't Mark Penn thrown under the wheels of the bus after he lied to the campaign about the results of Iowa polls? "Ready on day one", my ass.

[dbt]

she hired him because she "saved" her husband's presidency with a 49% victory in 1996. The fact that that was her target (and obviously has been her target) speaks volumes.

The fact is that she's run up against the most talented politician I've seen on the national stage in 25 years, and she did it without a plan B.

(I'd put it at 90% Obama, 8% Clinton, 2% field, that's just me).

[bks]

Hillary lost when Bill had his heart attack. He has never recovered his vitality, and it threw the enterprise off course.

--bks

[rod]

There is a third kind: those who are loyal to the person who gave them their chance to influence history, and who wouldn't abandon that person unless and until the leader crosses ethical and legal lines that no one else should join him/her in crossing. Those who would walk from their leader and boss just because they disagree on a policy point are not much more useful in running a country than those who betray confidences for personal gain.

[albrt]

Those who are struggling to grasp the type of "loyalty" shown by Clinton's advisors just need to re-read King Lear.

This is just more evidence of Hillary Clinton's bad judgment. Much worse than her husband. And it doesn't appear that she ever learns. She showed the same lack of strategic awareness in this campaign that she showed in managing the universal health care fiasco and voting for the Iraq war. Chronic lack of a Plan B is the most obvious characteristic of her approach to government policy.

Can you believe she was quoted last week saying she had "no idea" how complex the Texas delegate selection process was? More than a year into the active campaign, after all the money she spent, and after she announced that Texas was her firewall?

I have to disagree with our host - Hillary Clinton did not run a good, or even a passable campaign. She had a bunch of things going for her and squandered them all.

But I would still give her a 20% chance based solely on the long-standing, perverse, self-defeating tendencies of Democratic primary voters.

[albrt]

Those who are struggling to grasp the type of "loyalty" shown by Clinton's advisors just need to re-read King Lear.

This is just more evidence of Hillary Clinton's bad judgment. Much worse than her husband. And it doesn't appear that she ever learns. She showed the same lack of strategic awareness in this campaign that she showed in managing the universal health care fiasco and voting for the Iraq war. Chronic lack of a Plan B is the most obvious characteristic of her approach to government policy.

Can you believe she was quoted last week saying she had "no idea" how complex the Texas delegate selection process was? More than a year into the active campaign, after all the money she spent, and after she announced that Texas was her firewall?

I have to disagree with our host - Hillary Clinton did not run a good, or even a passable campaign. She had a bunch of things going for her and squandered them all.

But I would still give her a 20% chance based solely on the long-standing, perverse, self-defeating tendencies of Democratic primary voters.

[save_the_rustbelt]

I tried to sketch an organization chart for this and got a huge headache.

I've never been involved in a major campaign but this gives my management consultant genes a pain in the head. How can any organization function like this?

Those of us with a "professional" background understand that confidentiality is a mark of a real professional, as opposed to those who define professional as doing it for money or power.

Still, the campaign would have succeeded if not for the shooting star that is the Obama campaign.

IF Hillary became President who would be her Chief of State? Scary?

[MDtoMN]

I originally preferred Edwards, and I had a hard time picking between Clinton and Obama. I switched to Obama when the Clinton campaign (1) started trying to change the primary rules midstream and (2) seemed to play the race card in South Carolina.

I have not regretted that switch at all. If anything, the campaign has reminded me of many of the problems we saw in during the Clinton Presidency. (1) An obsession with winning the spin of the day -- They were constantly trying to spin each win, each loss. Although some spinning is necessary, I think it's mostly overrated and counterproductive. (2) The constant leaking from insiders. I remember during the Clinton presidency, someone was constantly leaking annoying stuff that made Clinton look bad.

[Overwhelmingly spinmasters who wanted reporter points and to become media celebrities themselves. Substance people always said that he was trying hard to make the right decisions, but that the decisions were tough and the tradeoffs hard...]

We seem to have returned to that.

[kusaka]

Well, as they say, you can never overestimate stupidity of American electorate.

[ogmb]

Who the hell are you thinking of when you say "2% field"?!?

[Roger Bigod]

Why should anyone who cares about the "substance of policy" waste time working for her? Her standard response to any issue is calibrated expression of "concern" followed by voting her donor list. She may be convinced that her youthful ideals are intact, just tempered by adult realism, but all that's left now is stale phrases and an acrid personality.

One irony is that she dropped the feely-touchy, takes-a-village schtick a while back in order to project a resolute CINC image. So Obama walked in through the Feely-Touchy Gap. For all his sincerity, he's just as much a corporate whore as she is. But she can't point this out, now can she?

[Matt]

When a campaign is losing, this sort of story comes out. Always. Because it's the truth. Organizations under stress develop fractures, and the truth about those fractures leaks out.

The following won't add much to what others have written, but I can't resist.

1. HRC's chances of getting the nomination are proably below INTRADE's 17 percent.
2. That she is pushing the line that the Florida and Michigan delagates should be seated is clear evidence of a shaky moral compass, and of placing self over party. As she will remain a major figure in the Democratic party, I will try to forget about that fact once the nominating race is over. But it will be hard.
3. HRC's clear deficiencies as a manager are by now very well chronicled. (Not knowing that you're out of money? Not knowing the delegate selection rules in Texas? No orgainization at all in the post-Super-Tuesday caucases? Wow!)
4. BHO's clear strengths as a manager are by now well established. Only the combination of his incredible gifts as speaker and campaigner and his built-from-the-ground-up best political organization ever could have wrested the nomination from someone with so many built-in advantages.

[save_the_rustbelt]

Florida and Michigans delegates should be seated, and the board of the DNC should resign in shame.

If kissing the feet of the Democrats in New Hampshire and Iowa is more important than the Democrats in Florida and Michigan, let'em get their money and votes in Iowa.

[save_the_rustbelt]

deteriorating very quickly.........

CLINTON STAFFERS CIRCULATE 'DRESSED' OBAMA
Mon Feb 25 2008 06:51:00 ET

With a week to go until the Texas and Ohio primaries, stressed Clinton staffers circulated a photo over the weekend of a "dressed" Barack Obama.

The photo, taken in 2006, shows the Democrat frontrunner fitted as a Somali Elder, during his visit to Wajir, a rural area in northeastern Kenya.

The senator was on a five-country tour of Africa.

"Wouldn't we be seeing this on the cover of every magazine if it were HRC?" questioned one campaign staffer, in an email obtained by the DRUDGE REPORT.

In December, the campaign asked one of its volunteer county coordinators in Iowa to step down after the person forwarded an e-mail falsely stating that Barack Obama is a Muslim.

Obama campaign manager David Plouffe quickly accused the Clinton campaign Monday of 'shameful offensive fear-mongering' for circulating the snap.

Clinton campaign manager Maggie Williams responds: "If Barack Obama's campaign wants to suggest that a photo of him wearing traditional Somali clothing is divisive, they should be ashamed."

[Chris Brown]

Noam Scheiber has a fascinating report over at TNR illustrating just how different Obama's approach is to Clinton's, specifically in his selection of economics and foreign affairs advisers.

http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=4d40a39e-8f57-4054-bd99-94bc9d19be1a

[VJ]

Of course the Michigan and Florida delegates will have to be seated. Can you imagine the Democratic nominee attempting to campaign in those two states in the two months between the convention and the general after MILLIONS of their voters are disenfranchised ?

So, add in her lead in the super delegates, and if Senator Clinton wins Texas, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, who is the more viable candidate ? The one whose wins include a bunch of states NO Democrat can win in a general election, or the candidate who won California, Florida, Ohio, New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Tennessee, and Arkansas ?

[Thorstein Veblen]

A different topic... How cool is it that the Dem's have a real primary in Texas?!?!? Texas, as we all know, despite Bush being from there, is fast trending Democrat demographically... (Of course, Obama does terribly among Latinos, so I doubt it will be his administration which puts Texas into the Dem column come November, but one can dream...) Seriously, why don't the Dems start hosting the National Convention in Texas? Why hasn't Texas's primary been moved up? Nixon had a southern strategy, why can't the Dems have a Texas strategy?

[Eric H]

"they are diminishing that chance by dishing 'campaign in turmoil' dirt to reporters in the hope that it will get a knife stuck in the back of one of their competitors"

Wasn't the Clinton White House somewhat famous for its sieve-like qualities? Personally, I'd prefer that to the Faraday cage we have now, but we shouldn't be surprised that Hillary's choice of cronies would inlude people who will put their personal agenda and aggrandizement ahead of "the common good".

"Given all of his faults, President Clinton had the good judgment to hire competent folks to manage the federal government. Bush hired cronies and loyalists."

Yep, nary an indictment or scandal in sight the whole 8 years. Same thing during his time in Arkansas. Well, with some exceptions.

http://prorev.com/missingclinton.htm

Partisanship, like love, affects the visual senses. Confirmation bias and salsa, anyone?