(2003-10-10) Clark Campaign

Some thoughts on the Wesley Clark Presidential Election campaign...

• an old Conspiracy Theory is that Clark wasn't expected to have staying power, and his waning would provide an excuse for Hillary Clinton to come in and save the party (giving Clark the VP slot). But these issues are too early to support that idea...

• I still think CandidateBlogs are silly.

• I find it amusing to see people believe that the candidates are somehow more Populist than their ring of Belt Way insider advisors.

• I'm reminded of a couple points from the Tom Peters gig the other day:

  • Clayton Christensen (Innovators Dilemma) notes that it's the Best Practices of established companies that lead to their destruction (because those "BuiltToLast" practices are good for optimizing within a stable environment, but leave you open to a Disruptive Technology or other big change)

  • Tom claimed the PharmCo-s are doomed, in part, because of the cost of their sales process. Yet a Sy Base customer giving a presentation noted that the number of pharmco sales reps in the US is increasing

• Likewise, as there's increasing talk about Advertising losing its effectiveness, the amount of advertising continues to increase

• In a B School strategy course, the prof talked about the Last Iceman strategy.

How might such points apply to managing a political campaign's scalability? Maybe it's logical for the pros to behave the way they do (maybe it's not good for the country, but it maximizes odds of winning the election). And maybe the time to switch to Worst Practices is only seen in hindsight...