A quick couple of links to Joshua Green's excellent work over at the Atlantic Monthly postgaming the Hillary campaign from original sources, along with a few brief thoughts on the important and relevant (to the general election) things we can learn by comparing Hillary's adventures with Barack and his campaign.
First here are the links. The main article, and the cache of documents on which it is based.
As Joshua Green says of the document haul he got "anything that would offer a contemporaneous account. The result demonstrates that paranoid dysfunction breeds the impulse to hoard. Everything from major strategic plans to bitchy staff e-mail feuds was handed over."
What is clear here is that a key difference in the two campaigns was the difference in effectiveness between the two candidates as executive managers. Turns out, Barack is much better at it than Hillary. Just the opposite of what Hillary (and the media narrative) was telling us at the time.
I've written here before about Obama's founding principles for his campaign organisation, as reported by the excellent Karen Tumulty, "Obama laid down three ruling principles for his future chief operating officer: Run the campaign with respect; build it from the bottom up; and finally, no drama". The benefits of this approach to organisation are put into stark relief by the poison evident in some of the in-house correspondence that Joshua Green has dug up in the HRC campaign. The results have spoken for themsleves. All of which gives me confidence about the sort of West Wing Obama would build and run and the enormous improvement that might make to good government.
Proven effectiveness as an executive in building and running a diverse national political enterprise whilst providing inspiring leadership. Sounds like a qualification for a senior executive job doesn't it?