Clinton, Obama management styles

BEFORE the Iowa Caucuses, I asked both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton — in separate interviews — about being the CEO of their respective campaigns and what had "trickled down" from them to their campaign staff.  Given the recent news of a change in Clinton’s campaign staff and Mark Halperin’s observation that one of Obama’s strengths is the stability of his campaign team, I thought it time for a rewind to what the two said.

Obama said this during an interview with Radio Iowa on 12/22/07: "I’m very proud of the fact that you haven’t seen a lot of drama or a lot of back-biting in our campaign.  I think everybody is focusing on doing their job. People generally left their egos at the door.  People take responsibility for their work and, you know, don’t blame others when mistakes are made and people don’t jump on people when mistakes are made.  We hold folks accountable, but there’s a calm in our organization and a trust, I think, between people and I like to take a little bit of credit for that."

Clinton said this during an interview with Radio Iowa on 12/26/07: "That we want to run a campaign on the real issues facing America, that we want to talk about the positive changes I have brought in people’s lives and the ones that I will bring as president and that we want to run a campaign that really reached to as many people as possible, answers their questions, provides them the support they need to make this important decision, but at the end of the day all of us are doing this for the same reason — I, as the candidate, every staff member, every volunteer — because we want our country back.  We want to be proud of it again.  We want to face the challenges and problems that beset us and we want to make history together."