Your campaign staff and you

Not that I'm a fan of racial or gender quotas - I'm kind of a meritocracy gal, myself - but this breakdown of the ethnicities of staffers on several of the major presidential campaigns is worth a look.

On my old blog, I wrote in a post way back that, in my opinion, it's unrealistic to expect a candidate to be all things to all people. It's not important to me that the person for whom I'm voting shares all of my experiences, but he or she needs to understand that there are perspectives other than his or her own - especially with respect to economic differences.

This is where one's staff comes in. President Bush may have an ethnically diverse gang at his side, but if they all think the same way, what's the point? In my experience, the best managers and leaders were the ones who invited differing opinions and experiences, knowing that varied viewpoints sharpened their own perspectives.

So, while the ethnic make-up of a campaign staff certainly doesn't tell the whole story, for me it's a piece. If nothing else, it reflects the candidate's consciousness of the fact that most Americans do not get the Rich White Guy Experience. I like knowing that my future president cares about these things.

So what do we have here? Stereotype alert! Democrats are more diverse, and Rudy Giuliani (in addition to being a shameless sports bigamist, adulterer and uniformed civil servant whore-er) isn't much into hiring people of color. (Full disclosure - because DiversityInc, who did this study, is subscriber-based, I have no idea who they include in their Caucasian classification. It seems to not include African American, Latino, Asian American and Native American people.)

What's more interesting to me is that the Democratic campaigns cooperated with the survey, while the Republican campaigns did not. C'mon, guys - especially you, Rudy the Allegedly Pugnacious. From a PR view, what the hell is that? Why appear to be hiding something? You can't spin your way out of an all-white campaign staff, but you want me to send you to deal with Congress and that whack-job in Iran? Puh-leeze. Go back to your third wife and your fat consulting job, and call me when you're REALLY ready to rule the world.

And pick a baseball team and stick with it, you chickensh*t.

(BTW, props to my man Bill Richardson for being the only campaign to employ a Native American.)