Opinion: Hillary Clinton crosses fingers, shakes up her campaign
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The parallels are obvious, and Hillary Clinton obviously hopes the lines for her presidential campaign will meet at the same point.
Back in late 2003, with his White House bid going nowhere, John Kerry shook up his staff and pumped more money into his campaign through a home mortgage. Both moves proved worthwhile, as he went on to easily claim the Democratic nomination.
Last summer, Republican John McCain reshuffled the top tiers of his presidential campaign staff. And later in the year, some creative financing allowed him to secure a much-needed loan for his coffers. Now, in a political resurrection for the ages, he has the GOP prize within his grasp.
In the space of less than a week, Clinton has both tapped her personal finances for some political cash and installed a new campaign manager. Yet to be determined, of course, is whether these steps will end in the same happy result for her as they did for Kerry and McCain.
In the short term, the Clinton team adroitly used her loan to help publicize an appeal for more contributions that quickly paid off.
Still, the new campaign honcho, Maggie Williams, will face the challenge of running an operation that needs to be more careful in its spending than it has been. And she will have to do so while Clinton tries to break a mini-losing streak to Obama, which continued Sunday with his triumph in the Maine caucuses.
An excellent overview of tensions ...
within Clinton’s staff was provided two weeks ago by the New Republic’s Michelle Cottle. The piece, which you can read here, presaged Williams’ ascension. Noting that her ‘history with the Clintons is a fraught one,’ Cottle also offers this useful background:
‘Of the original Hillaryland crew, arguably no one bore the brunt of the scandals and political storms as fiercely. Twice, Williams became the object of intense public and legal scrutiny: first, when the Whitewater probe raised allegations that she had helped obstruct the investigation into Vince Foster’s suicide by removing files from his office on the night he died; and, again, when the disputed details of her acceptance of a $50,000 political donation from Johnny Chung earned her an invitation to testify before Congress during the Democrats’ 1996 fund-raising scandal. For many political watchers, Williams stood as the poster child for the Clintons’ careless disregard of those close to them. At the end of Bill Clinton’s first term, a scarred and exhausted Williams, having racked up $350,000 in legal bills, resigned her White House post and fled to Paris for a couple of years with her new husband.’
-- Don Frederick