Hillary’s Monumental Mismanagement

Based on the managerial and financial acumen Hillary Clinton has demonstrated in managing her campaign and its finances, we can draw an analogy as to how effective she would have been as President and the steward of taxpayers’ funds.

A simple phrase sums it up nicely: “Piss poor.”

Management, particularly financial management, does not exist in a vacuum. It is not good financial management to amass funds and then hold on to them when there was a reason besides greed for soliciting the funds in the first place.

Hillary amassed her campaign funds for a very significant reason: to become President of the United States. Her objective was not to be the Democrat Party nominee – that was just a necessary step in the process. However, to win the presidency, you must be your party’s nominee, and to have the highest probability of being elected President, you should win the Democrat nomination convincingly with a lot of resources to spare.

When Hillary began her campaign for the presidency perhaps decades ago, but certainly as early as 1992 when Bill was elected President, she steadily began amassing resources. Her ability to solicit funds and political talent among Democrats was boundless, and her ace resource, Bill, was always handy to calm perceptions that she had no political accomplishments except for her health care disaster.

“If there are problems, things that need to be done, she can just call for Bill. It’s really his third term, you know.”

Soon her vast resources were a formidable barrier to opposition from Democrat or Republican alike. In many main stream media outlets she was already anointed the next President.

Along the way Al Gore and John Kerry played the useful fool for her. It would have been a disaster, the crashing end of her dream, if Gore became president. Florida kept her dream alive.

Hillary wouldn’t have been able to run until 2008, and if Gore had been reelected in 2004, she would have to shoulder Joe Lieberman, Gore's heir apparent, out of the way. The only way she could accomplish that would be if the Gore presidency was a disaster, at which time a Republican would be poised to retake the presidency, regardless of which Democrat ran.

No wonder Bill and Hillary did all they could to sabotage Al Gore.

Then there was John Kerrey in 2004. Hillary couldn’t run yet, because she was just a first term carpet-bagging senator from New York who had not placed her legislative stamp on anything.

Come to think about it, now Hillary is just a second-term senator who still hasn’t placed her legislative stamp on anything.

Every night Hillary must pray her thanks for the Swift Boaters. A President Kerrey might have prolonged her wait until 2012, at which time she would be a much older, veteran two-term senator still without her legislative stamp on anything. A John Edwards without the pretty face and nice hair.

Pretty-boy Edwards, of course, would consider himself John Kerrey’s heir as next President, so Hillary would be put off until 2016 or later. By then she would be 69 years old, and no one would remember that she represented Bill’s third term. Bill would be 70 years old then, finally certified “intern-safe.”

Looking at an inventory of Hillary’s resources, it was obvious she would be our next president.

She raised huge piles of contributions, more than anyone before, sooner than anyone before, faster than anyone before.
She had the highest name recognition of any candidate for any office ever; only Bill had higher name recognition, and he wasn’t running.
She was his surrogate for a third term.
She had two decades to put together a plan and a team for the 2008 presidential election.
Over half of voters are women.
Older voters are the most likely to vote, and are her strongest supporters.

But Hillary is not going to be our next president.

With all the time and resources in the world, she’s losing badly to a freshman senator who has absolutely no accomplishments except speaking ability, and the good sense to steal good lines when he finds them.

Hillary knew Obama was a good speaker. She was at the 2004 Convention. And did nothing to counter, like improving her own abilities to at least "adequate."

Hillary knew from the Howard Dean example that internet fund raising was a rich source of funds, and left it for Obama.

Hillary knew from the Howard Dean example that Iowa required extraordinary effort and organizing strength and energy, and finished third to a fledgling campaigner and an underfunded and understaffed one, while basically sitting out Iowa.

She had the means to administer coups de grace to both Obama and Edwards, yet ended up giving momentum to Obama and his supporters. Although she won in New Hampshire, she had already squandered her air of invincibility and inevitability.

Others started to notice what I have always thought was obvious: Hillary is not likable or charismatic, her only accomplishment was organizing a healthcare train wreck that led to a Republican takeover of the House and Senate in 1994, and only got to her leading position among Democrats because she was Bill’s wife and surrogate. Any strong, principled woman would have pulled the plug on their marriage decades before, but Hillary knew she couldn’t and still hang on to her political dreams.

So here she is, after suffering public humiliation by Bill for over three decades, now her inept management and weak leadership skills exposed for all to see, and honored for running the worst presidential campaign ever.

At least John Kerrey is happier. He was stuck with the title of “worst campaign ever” for only four years.

I think Hillary will own it a long time.

Do I feel sorry for Hillary? After she endured so much for so long, had her life’s ambition in her grasp and felt it steadily slipping away forever, and with everyone watching and wondering how such an impossible thing could happen?

And cried?

Do I feel sorry?

Nah.

(Well, sort of. I'm a compassionate conservative, and Hillary would have been easy for John McCain to beat. I feel sorry that McCain will have to work a little harder now. However, if Hillary will only keep fighting through the Democrat convention, which I'm sure she will, it will make McCain's election a lot easier.)