Archives for 2008

George Will:

Behind the idea that Obama should run in harness with Clinton is this wobbly theory: Because the Republican Party is in such bad odor, if you unify the Democratic Party, that will suffice to win the election, and she is a necessary and sufficient catalyst of unity. But she is neither. She would be a potent unifier of John McCain’s party, thereby setting the stage for exactly what the nation does not need, another angry campaign of mere mobilization rather than persuasion.

What Obama offers us is the chance, no matter how slight to change the conversation from “Who do I vote against?” to “What is this change you’re promising, and why should I vote for you?” Will goes on: “The candidate embracing the ‘future’ should not glue himself to Washington circa 1993. Someone promising to ‘turn the page’ should not revert to an earlier chapter. ” Thoughts?

Why Hillary Should Not Be Obama’s Running MatePost + Comments (67)

No comment:

After a long primary season, the Clinton campaign’s expenditures have far exceeded the amount of donations it has received so far, and the campaign has accumulated debt of more than $19 million, according to campaign finance reports. Much of that debt consists of unpaid salaries and bills to vendors.

When questioned about Clinton fundraisers being asked to join the Obama campaign, Ferraro told The Hill, “These are the people raising hundreds of thousands of dollars. I would hope that [Obama] would do the same thing with his fundraisers to pay off Hillary’s debt.”’

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Ferraro said she has not been asked to raise funds for the Obama campaign.

And if he doesn’t, it is just another example of reverse racism!

In other Ferraro news, go read this piece at Too Sense titled “The Limited Empathy of Joan Walsh.”

Just Go Away, GeraldinePost + Comments (113)

This Time piece dovetails nicely with my post earlier:

Obama uses a different frame of reference. “As somebody who had been a community organizer,” Obama recalls, “I was convinced that if you invited people to get engaged, if you weren’t trying to campaign like you were selling soap but instead said, ‘This is your campaign, you own it, and you can run with it,’ that people would respond and we could build a new electoral map.” The chum stores, the e-mail obsession and the way Obama organizations sprang up organically in almost every congressional district in the country meant that by the time Obama’s field organizers arrived in a state, all they had to do was fire up an engine that had already been designed and built locally. “We had to rely on the grass roots, and we had clarity on that from the beginning,” says Plouffe.

By contrast, the Clinton campaign, which started out with superior resources and the mantle of inevitability, was a top-down operation in which decision-making rested with a small coterie of longtime aides. Her state organizers often got mixed signals from the headquarters near Washington. Decisions from Hillaryland often came too late for her field organization to execute. Obama’s bottom-up philosophy also helps explain why he was able to sweep the organization-heavy caucus states, which were so crucial to building up his insurmountable lead in pledged delegates. What was not appreciated by many at the time: while Clinton spent heavily in every state she contested, Obama’s approach saved money. Says Dean-campaign veteran Trippi: “His volunteers were organizing his caucus victories for free.”

This reminds me of what I was taught when I was serving as an armor crewman 11th ACR in the Fulda gap, and we were preparing for the onslaught of Soviet armor to come cruising through. We were told to always let the scouts through, because Soviet Doctrine was to have scouts advance forward over phase lines on the map, and when they stopped radioing back phase lines, Soviet superiors knew they had made contact. Thus, you allowed them to get through the lines and eliminate them behind the lines, so the enemy has an inaccurate assessment.

Another story we were told was that the Soviets did not often have two way radios in all of their vehicles. Command had two-way, line units would only have one way. The notion was that decision-making authority was centralized at the top for them, while our troops had much greater latitude to make decisions at the lowest level- the military version of subsidiarity, something everyone discusses in public international law classes in college (presuming you take them). This was also, if I remember correctly (it has been years since I read the texts), the reason for the delayed response from German armor at Normandy because Rommel was actually out of theatre celebrating his anniversary or some other event (Update- it was his wife’s birthday).

Again, not sure how much of the above is accurate, although someone more familiar with REFORGER and Soviet doctrine could probably validate or invalidate my ramblings, for all I know I was fed nonsense by my platoon sergeant, but if accurate, it does seem analogous to the top-down formulation of the Clinton campaign. Trust, decision making authority, and organizational skills were dispersed in the Obama campaign and organic, rather than centralized and forced down on local offices from on high.

Another ContrastPost + Comments (187)