Thursday, July 3, 2008

Who's the Better CEO, McCain or Obama? And Why?

Wesley Clark's inept challenge of John McCain's "executive" capabilities by minimizing--some might even say, trivializing--the candidate's military career have cost Clark any chance he had the the O-VP.

But through a fortuitous bit of timing, it may have opened up a space for Team Obama to raise some serious questions regarding McCain's ability to manage a large organization.

The complete top-down reorganization of the McCain campaign is a real issue.

Neither Obama nor McCain have any real "executive" leadership experience. That's a concrete fact that one cannot get around.

Their first tests of running a complex organization has come in the campaign itself, namely, running their own campaign organizations.

How have they done? (Should this be rhetorical question, as the answer is so obvious?)

The most expert and objective critique of O's performance would come from two people who share the same last name and were his adversaries just a short month ago: Hillary and Bill. Barack ran a tight ship and kept its command structure intact during the primary season, and continues to do so today.

McCain? He was forced during the primary season to do a draconian overhaul in his campaign management as his ship was sinking. Now, early in the general election phase, his ship has again begun to take on water. And again, commanding officers are replaced, strategic management structure is fundamentally revised, "outside" help is brought aboard.

If there's going to be a debate about who is the better executive, who is more adept at putting together and leading a winning team, the campaign thus-far has put Obama far in the lead on this issue.

Now, O's PR group has to find a way to exploit this, without a word about the Navy; in other words, it should not be done with blunt instruments like Wes Clark...but it should be done.

MyBlog: http://ProteanPerspectives.blogspot.com

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