A Better Executive, Obama or Clinton?

Obama's campaign proves he's a better executive than Clinton

He has expertly managed a massive political operation in a way no one has ever done before.

This weekend's firing of chief political strategist Mark Penn is just the most recent incident in a string of events that highlight Hillary Clinton's incompetence.
Penn's, and therefore Hillary's, primary strategy going into this campaign was to position the Senator from New York as the establishment candidate, the "experience" candidate, the only one who could be ready to be President on "Day one." Clearly that has not worked.
The reality is that Clinton has roughly the same amount of experience as Barack Obama. Clinton has been on the national stage for four years longer than Barack, but Obama has been playing the game of electoral politics for four years longer than Clinton has.
Neither of them has experience as a mayor or governor and therefore no executive experience, neither does McCain for that matter.
The closest things either of them have to executive experience are their Presidential Campaigns and when we take a closer look at those, there is no argument that Barack Obama is doing a far better job.
Even the most ardent Hillary Clinton supporter is not going to claim that their campaign has been running well, at least not with a straight face. Since "Day one" of this campaign the Obama Campaign has outdone Team Clinton.
Right off the bat, Obama got two things right that Clinton did not.
One, he understood what this race was going to be about, change. Of course, this was the only natural course for Barack to take, but his understanding of this is likely one of the major reasons he actually decided to throw his hat into the ring in the first place.
Two, Obama understood the importance of running a nation-wide campaign. He wanted to be prepared in case Iowa and New Hampshire didn't go exactly as planned. He was prepared for the long-term. Clinton was not.
Throughout this campaign, Obama has always been a step or two ahead of Clinton. The most dramatic example of this was in the states following Super Tuesday. Barack Obama went on an 11-state winning streak post-Feb. 5th. In large part because he already had organizations and advertising up-and-running in places like Washington, Nebraska and Louisiana prior to Super Tuesday.
Along the same lines, Penn and Clinton also made the strategic decision to "ignore" what they referred to as "boutique states", the smaller caucus states. The campaign has consistently implied that caucuses are not Democratic, funny that we never heard that from her campaign prior to the Iowa Caucuses.
What may be even worse than her strategic failure is Clinton's organizational failure. If you want to do a fun experiment on your own try Googling "Clinton owes" and see what comes up, then Google "Obama owes."
In the first three pages of results zero mention Barack Obama's campaign owing anyone money. They are all stories about who Obama owes some sort of gratitude.
The results, however, produce 15 stories (50% of the stories) about how Hillary Clinton's Campaign owes someone money. A story that didn't even make it into the top 30 on Google is the story of Bill Clinton's visit to the University of California at Berkeley.
The former President told students there "I owe this campus a lot."
It turns out his wife does to. The Campaign was supposed to pay the University $11,000 for the appearance. They were billed on Jan. 23rd and as of yesterday still owed over $5,000. The University has made repeated attempts to collect from the campaign and have set a deadline of May 10th before the bill is sent to collections.
At least two other California schools have made similar claims. Others in Rhode Island, Connecticut and even Hillary Clinton's own high school in Illinois have also reported a lack of payment from the Clinton Campaign. There are many other stories like this out there, but I don't have the time to sift through all of them.
If Clinton's Campaign was completely out of money it would be understandable that she was unable to come up with the money. Campaigns end up in debt all the time. However, once it reaches a certain point, most of those campaigns quit and ask supporters to help raise the money to repay the schools, veteran's organizations and cities and towns that were gracious enough to host them.
The problem is Clinton's Campaign is not out of money. They are raising $20 million a month. Surely that is enough to cover the dozens of $5,000 - $10,000 chunks of cash they owe.
In Clinton's defense though, it seems that at least a portion of that $20 million a month may be illegally obtained, and no one wants schools to get paid with dirty money. Think about the children!
This story has been popping up all over, and while it may be anecdotal, it says a lot about how the two campaigns have been run thus far. Basically Obama's Campaign sent back a $100 check to a man who is registered as a lobbyist for a non-profit organization, because he is a lobbyist. At the same time the man's wife can't get the Clinton Campaign to stop taking $10 a month from her bank account despite repeated attempts to end the direct withdrawal arrangement she had set up with them.
There is plenty of more evidence to suggest that Hillary Clinton's campaign is a mess, but I am not here to write a book, just to write today's post.
As I said in the beginning of the post, the Mark Penn incident is just the latest in a long string of problems for Hillary Clinton. Penn was, and will continue to be a large problem for this campaign. In fact, because of his private and sometimes public feuds with other high-ranking campaign staffers, some have referred to Clinton's Campaign headquarters as the "Beirut-on-the-Potomic."
Obama's campaign on the other hand has been widely praised as one of the best operations in modern politics.
Who do you think is equipped to be a better leader?
By the way, Clinton still owes Mark Penn $2.5 million.
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