Hillary Clinton’s Management Paradox

This is what we have to look forward to for the next 19 months: all of the chattering political journalists hoping the bone they have latched on to turns into The Big One, the story that leads to a cascade of negative events which sinks the candidates' presidential aspirations permanently.

Mr. Nyhan, your previous story about Hillary Clinton's private email server is the correct one. This is no big deal. It is not a scandal, and nothing big will come out of it. Anyone who doesn't vote for her in Nov of 2016 because of her private email server was never going to vote for her anyway.

Did she make a mistake? Yes, an unforced one, too. Is it fatal? Not even close. Does it show something about her management style? Yes, but it is very old news: she is overly controlling.

Does having both too many and not enough aides matter here? No, she made the decision to host her own email, and nobody said anything about it for over 4 years, not Democrats who knew, not Republicans who knew, not those at the State Department, not those in the Obama administration. Nobody.

How come? Because others had had their own private email accounts while working for the Federal government, including former Sec. of State, Colin Powell. A year and a half from now this will be a non-story. It already is one. Bury this bone, and forget where it is buried.

It would be an understatement to say, Hillary Clinton is far from the ideal candidate for President. Wherever she goes there is, and probably always will be a sideshow. That's the bad news for her.

The good news for HER is, whoever the republican candidate is, will be front and center of a genuine freak show.

We are the Unfortunates who have to choose therefore between a sideshow and a freak show.

The corporations and special interests who anoint these candidates will get quite a laugh at us around election time.

Her explanation to this imperfect storm should be something like: I do not really know why I kept using this email service and not switch completely to the office email. With this email, I felt I was beginning to understand email for the first time and how to use it. It felt kind of lucky somehow and why change that. Like the famous person who became the CEO of a multibillion dollar company over night and just won't change the apartment he rented as a college student because it felt so lucky to him.

So Clinton will play this exactly wrong dragging it out for weeks or months. Just give up the server to a neutral forensic analyses.

So incredibly stupid, unbelievable.

This just demonstrates once again that there is nothing there, its all ego, hubris and entitlement. Rules don't apply to them, a $300,000 salary means your "dirt poor" and you take money from whom ever will supply it because your are entitled.
Hillary is becoming the democrat's equivalent of Sara Palin, a figure of derision and a caricature of a candidate. Are you SURE you want to go down this road? Remember, coattails can lift you up, but they can also drag you down.

World view? What world view? Her world ends at the tip of her nose.

The New York Times raises useful questions regarding Hillary Clinton's management style, involving too many ? or too few? advisors, staffers, consultants, and others who apparently have played a role (for better or worse) in Mrs. Clinton's earlier endeavors as First Lady and Secretary of State.

One question worth exploring would relate the role of Bill Clinton as First Gentleman in a possible Hillary Clinton administration. Bill Clinton, as the nation's 42nd President, was very comfortable in his leadership role for two terms 1993-2001. As First Gentleman, could he resist the temptation to opine on his wife's policy formulations and those decisions which would have a tremendous bearing upon the Nation's well-being?

If the country elects Mrs. Clinton as President, who would actually govern? Would there be a wizard behind the curtain who pulls her strings?

I'm not a huge fan of HRC, but this all seems a bit over the top when there are so many other facets to be concerned about.
After the latest GOP shenanigans, I'm a 1000% more uncomfortable with their having the WH, let alone the People's House, so as an Independent, I'll have to pull the D lever, as I will never vote for another Republican for the rest of my life.
I cannot see anything positive in letting the GOP anywhere near any future SCOTUS appointments.
It's a shame but I don't want America becoming a theocracy or any more of an oligarch/corporate run government.

A thoughtful piece on management abilities. The email is another example of her in ability to manage. Her failure at healthcare is a second. I will be looking for a different candidate for 2016.

It was fun watching her trying not to roll her eyes. She has greatly improved. Was that what she has been practicing for the past week? Maybe she should bite her lip.

OK, there were management problems with her campaign staff. In the interim, she ran the State Department. How did she do on management there?

Hillary Clinton use of private email is a huge security breach coming from the Secretary of State herself. I can't believe that during her tenure she didn't exchange a single email with President Obama. It's his fault as well.

HRC's presser hasn't helped put this issue behind her. Once again, she's made herself the central issue, instead of the issues that really matter to most Americans. Elizabeth Warren is looking better & stronger with every passing day.

I think Ms. Clinton has clarified..what ever she thought was adequate. She is almost accepting her " act of oversimplification"..

"Unlikely to damage her chances?" Her "chances" are like the frog in the out of water, and all these episodes raise the temperature. She boils herself.

Which ever side of the political divide one sits on, the fact that Ms. Clinton was able to conduct our nation's business using a private email account during her entire tenure should be a concern. I hope that we will be able to find out whether anyone in the State department raised a concern when they saw the email address and whether anyone at State attempted to take action to curtail a practice that clearly was not in the public's interest and a violation of basic government IT policies. If the State employees are that easily cowed we are in trouble.

In job after job since Bill was first elected, Hillary has not been successful at a single job she has held. She has no social savvy, no political instincts, and no management ability, all of which have been proven to be true time after time. Yet somehow she is always promoted to a higher level, and now she expects to be elected President, and there are people who think she should be President.

"How did her staff not warn her about the political and security risks?"

Excuse me? Anybody who hasn't been living under a rock knows about email and its lack of security, its openness to attack, its vulnerabilities to spying, foreign and domestic. Anybody who works for any government agency or private company knows not to use those email accounts for private matters - to do so is often a firing offense. How is it that a Secretary of State has to be "warned" about such things? Secure email should be second nature to someone in that position.

In the past 15 years or more, anyone who has held an important leadership role in ANY sophisticated organization knows the importance of the leaders and staff using their official emails for official business. This is not just for appearance of professionalism (which is important by itself). It is also because of email firewalls and other security safeguards. Many mere mortal professionals who have demanding careers carry both a blackberry for business and an iPhone for personal use. Yet Secretary Clinton can say with a straight face that using a personal email AND storing her correspondence on a private server were normal deviations that are justified by her "convenience"? The whole argument insults our intelligence and supports my concern that this candidate is "too smart" by a half.

Yeah, that's right...blame it all on the staff. Wait...who selects the staff? Who manages it? Where does the buck stop? There are many many bucks flying around this operation, but they never seem to stop anywhere.

Seriously - blaming this whoops on Hillary's aides?

I mean, isn't this the way it goes? Scott Walker has blamed eliminating the real mission of the Wisconsin UW system, the Wisconsin Idea, on his aides mistaking the verbiage of His proposal, whoops. He also has previous aides who have been marked as felons for things they did 20 feet from his desk and he said he didn't have a clue about it....hmmm. (and one is still locked up for stealing thousands of $$$ from veterans)

Chris Christie blamed the George Washington Bridge scandal on his aides.
He even yapped about it for two hours in a press conference.
Now that is a lot of long winded aide-blaming to eliminate his responsibility.

Can any of us remember Attorney General Janet Reno saying "The buck stops with me" ? She might be the most honorable of a long, long, line of those associated with government leadership that will ever take responsibility with an honest heart.

Do we really have to go back to 1993 to find a responsible government employee who does not expect a subordinate to take the rap?

She manages to make Jeb Bush look like a viable alternative.

Why is the Democrat power structure so suicidal?

According to what I've read, she is not the first Secretary of State to use a personal account.

Besides -- all that stuff is stored somewhere on the planet -- even my stupid emails are "kept somewhere in a land not too far away" that are all retrievable.

So why does it matter? Really?

The Clintons appear to prefer a divide-and-conquer approach to their retainers and retinue: the hierarchical uncertainty - resolvable only by ultimate decisions by the Clintons themselves - keeps everyone co-dependent and jostling for position, just like a dysfunctional family with addict parents.