SHOULD THE PRESIDENCY OF THE UNITED STATES REALLY BE A MAN'S FIRST EXECUTIVE EXPERIENCE?:

Who's in charge of the Kerry campaign? (Scot Lehigh, September 8, 2004, Boston Globe)

Right now, well-placed sources say, it's not completely clear who is in charge.

"It is fairly chaotic over there," says one Democratic source. "Nobody has total control, and that is very dangerous." [...]

With the addition of Clintonistas Joe Lockhart, Joel Johnson, and Doug Sosnik -- and greater anticipated participation by consultants James Carville and Paul Begala and pollster Stanley Greenberg -- they describe a series of competing camps.

There's the old infrastructure of former Ted Kennedy staffers Cahill and Stephanie Cutter plus consultants Bob Shrum, Tad Devine, and Mike Donilon; there are the new Clinton recruits; and there are Kerry's longtime Boston advisers.

The current plan, they say, appears to be to avoid talk of any sort of campaign shake-up by quietly divvying up some important functions among the new recruits. But there's a problem there.

"You can't win a race like this by committee," says one Democrat observing the campaign closely.

During his two decades as a senator, Kerry has never been particularly good at building an effective, well-integrated, high-performing staff.

Chaos, denial, and incompetence all in a few paragraphs--yup, September'll be much better for the Senator than August was.

Posted by Orrin Judd at September 8, 2004 9:02 AM