Obama, Clinton ‘08
with Bill as Secretary of State
Since
I am not running for office, I respectfully exercise my right to change
my mind or as I like to view it, have my opinion evolve. In a prior
blog, “Why I switched to Hillary Clinton?” for which she and I took a fair amount of heat, I suggested that a Clinton, Obama ’08 ticket would be the way to go.
I’ve
had a change of mind, because I’ve had a change of heart. Being an
expert on emotional intelligence (so for those obsessive compulsive
personalities who only focus on substance vs. style, please have at
me), I’ve come up with something that makes the most sense emotionally
to me and I think will to others.
Essentially, Hillary Clinton
does not “feel” like a CEO or someone that a lot of people would like
to listen to for 4-8 years. It’s not her fault that she comes across
too much like a primed-to-scold mother with her hands on her hips about
to say: “So why did you do that?” In fact I've heard that in a private
relaxed setting and one on one she is quite warm and authentic (dare I
say Al Gore). However in public which the stage a President spends more
of their time and where they are judged, she comes off more opinionated
and insistent which too easily triggers a defensiveness or feeling that
you’ve done something wrong even when you haven’t. It’s like driving
past a policeman in a car and feeling like you’ve somehow done
something illegal when you haven’t.
It’s not just a female thing
either. In the minds of most people, Carly Fiorina and Martha Stewart
have similar “primed to be strident” public personalities, Meg Whitman
does not.
Barack Obama on the other hand comes off as having
strong opinions and passionate which is easier to listen to. Bill
Clinton had that quality (which is being eroded into as we see a
“darker” side of his personality showing through too frequently).
In
my prior blog I thought Clinton as President, Obama as V.P. was the way
to go. Currently, I have reversed that. The reason being that Obama
feels more expansive and visionary like a CEO and someone who will play
better on the world stage both to other countries and to youth around
the world (think Tony Blair and now Nicolas Sarkozy in France and
Bill Clinton '92), Clinton feels more "baby boomer refusing to go
gently into that good night," more focused on the details and pedantic
the way you’d expect a COO to be. On the world stage, people would
rather listen to a CEO than an COO.
If the best interests of
this country could take precedence over ego and politics (which cynics
and realists among you will say is not a “big” if, but an “impossible”
if) Obama as President, Clinton as Vice President with Bill as
Secretary of State and the “global market” facing presence to the world
that still find him so charming and inspiring would get my vote.