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
Showing posts with label CinC. Show all posts
Showing posts with label CinC. Show all posts
Thursday, July 3, 2008
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Hillary's Game: Reflecting the Starlight of Others
HRC's "lifetime of experience" consists in being married to a CinC during his eight years in office. She never served in the military, of course, and her combat experience probably consists of a pillow fight or two between her Wellesley sorority sisters and perhaps a bunch of fraternity boys. The sheer audacity of equating herself to McCain in the sphere of Commander of the military is exceeded only by her insinuations that Obama is somehow not in the McCain-Clinton league as far as national security/military matters are concerned.
Hillary is a professional coattail rider. She's riding Bill's, obviously; otherwise she would be as serious a candidate as the junior Senator from Oklahoma (whoever that may be.) But at least Bill is her husband. Now she is trying to attach herself to the coattails of the man she ostensibly is attempting to make her adversary in November. She likes glorying in the reflected light of stars. Stars radiate their own light; and, like them or not, Bill and McCain generate their own light---they are stars. Hillary lives in the reflection of the light of true stars, being incapable of generating light herself.
Unfortunately for her, she currently finds herself up against an opponent--Barrack-who has star power: again, like him or not, he radiates his own light and need not worry about catching the rays from another. So what does she do? She proposes that Barack be her running mate. Why? So she can capture the light he radiates and claim it is her own.
Hillary demeans not only herself, but the whole premise of the independent female making a serious run for the presidency when she reverts to the basking in some other individuals glory, especially when she chooses two stars that are male.
Obama's response to this pathetic line of attack against him should drip with sarcasm, but not so much that voters again feeling sorry for poor Hillary.
With the singular exception of Dwight Eisenhower, who served as Supreme Allied Commander in WWII (a fairly impressive rank, don't you think?), no candidate in recent times has ever been patently "qualified" to assume the CinC role, including McCain, Obama and HRC. But to make her "lifetime of experience" the lynchpin of her campaign is one of the great strategic blunders perpetrated by any campaign in recent memory---the public is just not that dumb.
Hillary is a professional coattail rider. She's riding Bill's, obviously; otherwise she would be as serious a candidate as the junior Senator from Oklahoma (whoever that may be.) But at least Bill is her husband. Now she is trying to attach herself to the coattails of the man she ostensibly is attempting to make her adversary in November. She likes glorying in the reflected light of stars. Stars radiate their own light; and, like them or not, Bill and McCain generate their own light---they are stars. Hillary lives in the reflection of the light of true stars, being incapable of generating light herself.
Unfortunately for her, she currently finds herself up against an opponent--Barrack-who has star power: again, like him or not, he radiates his own light and need not worry about catching the rays from another. So what does she do? She proposes that Barack be her running mate. Why? So she can capture the light he radiates and claim it is her own.
Hillary demeans not only herself, but the whole premise of the independent female making a serious run for the presidency when she reverts to the basking in some other individuals glory, especially when she chooses two stars that are male.
Obama's response to this pathetic line of attack against him should drip with sarcasm, but not so much that voters again feeling sorry for poor Hillary.
With the singular exception of Dwight Eisenhower, who served as Supreme Allied Commander in WWII (a fairly impressive rank, don't you think?), no candidate in recent times has ever been patently "qualified" to assume the CinC role, including McCain, Obama and HRC. But to make her "lifetime of experience" the lynchpin of her campaign is one of the great strategic blunders perpetrated by any campaign in recent memory---the public is just not that dumb.
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