Good for you! I mean that, sincerely. I admire someone who takes action, even it it’s counter to their natural instincts. I can’t, my handle isn’t an accident. I have no patience and would really, really suck at it.
I just googled her. Quote from her opponent:
“If we win, you can sleep easy knowing your tax cuts won’t be taken away by liberals seeking to punish job creators,”
I will never understand how anyone buys this kind of bullshit. I mean, why? WHY?
She had lots of money and her opponent in the primary had very little. The establishment thought she could bleed her opponent dry and win that way. Didn’t work.
Klobuchar likely announcing soon. Honestly, don’t know what to think about this. I’ve written previously that I thought someone utterly unlike trump might be the antidote we need for trump, but now I’m not so sure Klobuchar is that person. (I found her ‘savings account for college’ thing off-putting, but something is better than nothing I guess. This though speaks to character and temperament, which apparently many Americans don’t give a crap about but I still do.)
But not every former staffer sees Klobuchar’s intensity as a liability. A fourth former staffer said that he did not believe Klobuchar’s temper — “She makes it clear when she is disappointed,” he said — affected her office’s ability to function successfully. Klobuchar is known in Minnesota for her attention to detail, he pointed out, and her ability to speak to and attend to the needs of many different constituents.
“Her office is a very successful office, and in part the reason she’s re-elected with the margin she has, and enjoys the popularity in-state, is a result of her hardworking office and a member who’s very focused on representing her state.”
A fifth former aide said Klobuchar’s toughness had improved her work, and had had an undeniable impact on her state. “Her job wasn’t to be my mentor and cheerleader,” she said. “Her job was to get shit done for Minnesota.”
But four other staffers disagreed, saying their work, and the office’s, suffered as a result of Klobuchar’s behavior, because of a tense, anxious work environment and the high level of staff turnover.
"I’m not an anxious person; I’ve worked for other tough bosses,” said the second former staffer. “But it’s hard to explain the anxiety that permeates the office. It’s an overwhelming sense of panic and not being able to plan. You never knew what was going to come at you. That compounds, and it affects the workplace.”“The reason it matters is when I hear the descriptors of our current president and how he lacks responsibility and everyone is to blame, and there’s erratic behavior, name-calling,” she said. “It’s unfortunate, but you’re also describing her.”
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being a tough boss per se, but there’s also IMO a big difference between being demanding and being an asshole, and from the sound of it Klobuchar is more the later. What point is there to humiliating your staff? It’s one thing if for example it’s the military and lives literally depend on performing under pressure, it’s another entirely if you’ve misplaced a comma in a brief to a lawyer or Senator. (Full disclosure: I have misplaced commas before.)
Whoever we elect in 2020 has to be able to win 2024, possibly on a bad economy, so anyone who is a bad executive to me- that’s disqualifying.
These sorts of rumors and her inability to find a campaign manager- she’s completely disqualified to me. (I have concerns about Bernie in this area too, though not as bad)
But even these rumors don’t actually paint a picture of an ineffective executive.
On the contrary, they paint a picture of an extremely effective one. Just not one who cares that much about making everyone feel nice.
That’s actually fine.
Someone like Bezos provides an example of this. By all accounts he’s an asshole to his workers, and holds then to an incredibly high standard. But no reasonable argument could possibly be made that he is an ineffective executive. He’s not. He’s not only become the richest man in the world, but he’s built the dominant force in retail from whole cloth. He got the shit done.
Being nice is something that’s important in personally dealings with someone. It’s not always required professionally.
Also, women tend to get dinged for this kind of thing a lot more than men.
I would not want Bezos as President.
I think that’s reasonable, but I’d guess that your concerns would be more centered around a difference in vision, rather than concerns about his ability to execute that vision.
If he believed in the same goals as you, then he might be exactly the right guy.
It’s a number of things, but we’ve spent, as a group, a long time talking about likability in candidates. The guy often comes off as an ass. I don’t know how anyone could spend all this time saying how these other candidates don’t have likability but then point to him and shrug.
Democrats typically try to improve things for workers, like average workers. Putting the guy in charge of Amazon in charge of the country is basically counter to that. The bulk of the campaign would be about how he treated his wife, how he treats his employee, how he fought against paying taxes, and how he courts just about any Chinese company to sell anything they want on Amazon’s site, including actual counterfeits… if we want a business type persona, it would be better to go for one that wouldn’t be so easy to decimate because of their business practices where the business practices have generally good word of mouth already so not Amazon, Walmart, Uber, remove most of the big tech companies, something like Costco.
I don’t have an issue with someone running a type ship, but you need some positivity coming from within their company. There are a lot horror stories coming Amazon, corporate, warehouse and delivery, and that’s before you dig into their tech and WP stuff. (I don’t have an issue with WP for the most part).
To be clear, I’m not saying that Bezos should be president.
Merely that being a nice guy (or in this case, gal) isn’t necessarily a requirement to be an effective executive.
I think you’ve previously said they needed to be “likeable” or something to that effect right, so just foe charisma or actually decent. I was hoping the Democrats could field a decent human being as a candidate.
Certainly, to be elected, they need to be perceived as likeable.
But that has little to do with what they do behind closed doors, and is entirely separate from how effective they would be as president.
Clinton was apparently unelectable, but she would have been an extremely effective president, i suspect.
Clearly the Republicans don’t care how their candidates treat other people. I think the Democrats still do. If someone treats their staff, people under them like shit. That could easily eat at any likability points we think someone has.
I care because, don’t treat your staff like shit, and that will play easily against them in the future if it’s true, or even if it’s not, but at least they can try and counter it. There is a difference though between a tight ship and an abusive boss though.
I think likability and charisma are related but different characteristics. Likeability is would I want to have drinks with the guy. Reagan, George W and Bill Clinton did well in that dimension. Charisma is leadership, would I follow this person into battle or work my ass for him, or support their direction in taking the party or country somewhere. I’d argue that charisma is far more important for a political leader. Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, JFK, Reagan, Clinton, and Obama all possessed high charisma.
I do agree with you that Bezo has way too much package to run for President, Costco founder Jim Sinagel would have been a good choice when he was younger.
I’m surprised that Amy has a reputation as been an asshole of a boss. In my limited exposure to her, she came across as Minnesota nice, which to me is welcome change from Trump. Being an asshole boss is a negative but not a dis qualifier for me.
I only used Costco because their customers like them, their employees them, I think even suppliers are fairly pleased so it would be harder to attack someone who run Costoc than like Amazon and Walmart.
Well like @Timex suggested. She might be held to a too high or impossible standard because she’s a woman. A hard boss can easily turn into a “bitch” simply because someone didn’t like to be admonished by a woman when a guy might do the same thing, and it’s not some sort of slight when he does.
A tight ship would require some sort of discipline, but hopefully it’s the kind you learn and grow from not the kind that belittles and shames.
I agree there is a double standard for women in this respect. LBJ was the ultimate SOB boss, but the fear factor of being a recipient of his wrath, enhanced his reputation for being effective. He embraced his reputation. It is hard to imagine Amy saying, “you bet I’m very demanding boss, and I hold my staff accountable for their failure” and people thinking that’s a good thing.
If we are disqualifying Presidential candidates for being type A, demanding, assholes, only Carter would have passed muster in the last century. Likeability to the electorate and what happens behind closed doors in the administration are very different things, imo.
A mean person should not be President. Being President exaggerates your flaws, it doesn’t smooth them over.
I don’t know if Klobuchar is a mean person or not. Clinton did not seem like a mean person.
Clinton loved his staff.
A point worth considering. It’s February. Reporters are out there looking for anything that has a little zing to it, since people seem interested in the process and candidate declarations, but there’s not that much interesting stuff regarding the race for the nomination yet to report for a while. So…you’re going to get all sorts of stories reported as "BREAKING: "
They may be worthwhile stories and absolutely worth consideration.
But it’s also real easy to lunge at each one, too.