Hillary Clinton repeatedly uses the sales pitch that she is a competent, experienced and capable manager who knows how to get things done not just talk about them. Yet, if we take a look at her campaign it's pretty easy to conclude the exact opposite as explained Politico:

Clinton has overseen two major staff shake-ups in two months. She has left a trail of unpaid bills and unhappy vendors and had to loan her own campaign $5 million to keep it afloat in January. Her campaign badly underestimated her main adversary, Barack Obama, miscalculated the importance of organizing caucus states and was caught flat-footed after failing to lock up the nomination on Super Tuesday.

To this list of errors, I would add the squandering of her husband as a campaign asset that began with his bumbling mistakes in South Carolina, and Hillary's baffling and inexplicable "misstatements" about her trip to Bosnia.

In contrast the Obama campaign, with some minor missteps, is running like a well-oiled machine. They relentlessly exploit every opportunity to rack up delegates, have created a phenomenal fund-raising machine, and have constructed a powerful grass-roots organization. More on Obama's campaign from the Politico story:

"In every campaign, the strategy is important and the day-to-day management is important. And in Obama's case, it's hard not to argue that they have run a great campaign," said Steve Elmendorf, deputy campaign manager for Kerry's 2004 bid and a Clinton supporter. "It's been one of the best-run presidential campaigns in the last 20 years. I think they are focused and disciplined and on message. ... The test of a good campaign is having a plan and keeping an operation on track to execute a plan."

Put simply, Obama has shown he can offer a compelling vision, execute a complicated strategy to convey it and, all the while, keep the ledger in the black. That's not a bad first step to becoming a strong leader.

Running a large and extraordinarily complicated enterprise like a presidential campaign is certainly a good indicator of a candidate's management skills. John McCain also deserves credit for the campaign he has run that faced obstacles almost as daunting as Obama's.