Hillary Campaign Emails: Dems Shoot at Their Own Feet Again

I just read an article based on some emails, memos, and notes leaked to The Atlantic by one (or more) of Hillary Clinton’s former presidential campaign staffers.

When I first read the pre-publishing-date hype about the impending article, I thought: Why does this matter?  Hadn’t they heard that Hillary publicly threw her support behind Barack Obama back in June?  What’s the point of even trying to give the ex-candidate a black eye now?

Below are some rather unflattering conclusions that The Atlantic editor Josh Green drew based on the leaked emails, memos and notes:

"Two things struck me right away. The first was that, outward
appearances notwithstanding, the campaign prepared a clear strategy and did considerable planning. It sweated the large themes (Clinton’s late-in-the-game emergence as a blue-collar champion had been the idea all along) and the small details (campaign staffers in Portland, Oregon, kept tabs on Monica Lewinsky, who lived there, to avoid any surprise encounters).

"The second was the thought: Wow, it was even worse than I’d imagined! The anger and toxic obsessions overwhelmed even the most reserved Beltway wise men. Surprisingly, Clinton herself, when pressed, was her own shrewdest strategist, a role that had never been her strong suit in the White House. But her advisers couldn’t execute strategy; they routinely attacked and undermined each other, and Clinton never forced a resolution. Major decisions would be put off for weeks until suddenly she would erupt, driving her staff to panic and misfire."

"Above all, this irony emerges: Clinton ran on the basis of managerial competence—on her capacity, as she liked to put it, to “do the job from Day One.” In fact, she never behaved like a chief executive, and her own staff proved to be her Achilles’ heel. What is clear from the internal documents is that Clinton’s loss derived not from any specific decision she made but rather from the preponderance of the many she did not make. Her hesitancy and habit of avoiding hard choices exacted a price that eventually sank her chances at the presidency. What follows is the inside account of how the campaign for the seemingly unstoppable Democratic nominee came into being, and then came apart."(The Atlantic)

In short, Mr. Green thinks 1) that Hillary’s staff was largely incompetent, and 2) that Hillary didn’t have what it takes to be president after all.

I’m not sure what to make of the fact that the leaker(s) chose to leak the emails, memos and notes before the Democratic National Convention.

Presumably, Hillary’s ex-staffers are Democrats.  Presumably, they’ve followed Hillary’s lead and are supporting Barack Obama: ex-Hillary Campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle, for example, now works for the Obama campaign. Presumably, the ex-staffers want Democratic voters to unify behind Obama (especially the ones who now work for him), to improve his chances of beating McCain.

All that said, what on earth were the ex-staffers trying to accomplish by leaking the emails (etc) before the Democratic convention?

Hadn’t they heard that many Democratic voters are still very upset with the Democratic Party and rather reluctant to embrace unity?

True enough, November isn’t next week, and time has a way of healing wounds. But for any Democrats to even appear to be publicly smearing Hillary — especially since she started supporting Obama — is like taking 100-grade sandpaper to a scab.

I can see why the leaker(s) might have been eager to give the curious public a glimpse of the campaign’s inner workings.  But such a generous contribution to history could have waited until after the convention — or even after the November election.

Perhaps the leaker(s) were on a sour-grapes mission, seeking the satisfaction of publicly swiping at odious ex-colleagues.  Understandable, I suppose.

In the process, however, the leaker(s) were simultaneously painted by the brush of their own wielding — in that the entire campaign staff came off as rather puerile, unprofessional, and Three Stooges like in the competence department. 

I can think of better ways to attract future job opportunities.

Being an outsider, I don’t know who was thinking what when leaking the emails, memos and notes. We, the reading public, might better understand the motivation if the leaker(s) were identified in The Atlantic’s article.

Come to think of it, why wouldn’t the leaker(s) stand up and own the leakage?  I can’t imagine that they broke any laws by sharing emails that were sent to them or notes that they jotted down with their own hand.

I suspect that Hillary and her former staffers have a good idea of which high-level staffers even had access to all the leaked emails and that they’ve figured out which people did the leaking.

So, what’s the big secret?