22 February, 2008

What About Management?

We can debate ideology and policies and rhetoric till the cows ring the doorbell, but one necessary quality that the next US president must have is good management skills. On this issue it’s fair to ask of Hillary Clinton: If she’s making such a mess of running her campaign, how will she run her country.

Right now, she’s wasting money given voluntarily by donors to her. As President, she’ll have control over funds forcibly taken from taxpayers. It’s remarkable that she earlier positioned her management skills as a selling point. Heh.

Also read: Clive Crook’s Battle Of The Two Obamas. Echoing the sentiment expressed here, he writes:

I would be less concerned if I thought that Obama’s economic positions were simply a matter of pandering to the Democratic electorate. All politicians pander. In a way, it is a tribute to Obama that this truth would come as such a disappointment in his case. And a desire for straight talk would hardly be a reason for preferring Clinton or even, for that matter, John McCain. But what if Obama thinks that new trade barriers, much higher taxes on the well-paid, new regulations and incentives to steer companies’ decisions on where to locate are all wise policies? That would worry me more.

In the meantime a controversy’s broken out over John McCain’s past that relies on hints, allegations and things left unsaid rather than any concrete proof. The New Republic tells us how the New York Times put the story together. It seems to have rebounded on the Times, and might even be helping McCain. I agree with Michael Gerson:

If this is all the Times has—sexual innuendo and anonymous sources—it really is a scandal.

Quite.

(First link via email from Mohit.)