The Front Runner's Fall

Joshua Green from The Atlantic has an article about Hilary Clinton's campaign for the Presidency, including copies of internal memos from her campaign team from October 2006 til June 2008.

It's absolutely fascinating as a piece of 'instant history', a guide to how American presidential campaigns are managed, and will no doubt be poured over by future historians and future candidates and campaign managers.

It was published yesterday, and has already attracted a detailed and thoughtful follow up from another analyst over here, which explains how just one incorrect assumption early on in a campaign strategy can make the difference between a candidate being able to build an election-winning coalition of support and coming up just short.

The article and memos are a guide to what happens when a campaign can't decide on a clear message, where the senior people involved don't have the discipline to work together effectively and no one is prepared to take the tough decisions or be honest about the candidate's weaknesses. They also show quite how impressive Obama's campaign has been.