Sound Advice on Hiring Staff

Tevi Troy writes at Politico:

We’re already starting the next presidential campaign. Political insiders are making predictions about who will run and which campaigns are ahead in the all-important “staff primary”: the race for talented personnel who help shape the outcome.

The glitz and glamour of loud, well-known personalities are tempting, but history recommends caution. To win the staff primary, talent scouts from both parties should look to campaign aides with strong work ethics — and low profiles.

In 1937, the Brownlow Commission recommended to President Franklin D. Roosevelt that he needed White House aides with a “passion for anonymity.” This advice may be even more necessary when it comes to political campaigns.

If failed campaigns past teach anything, it’s that the higher the staffers’ profiles, the worse they do at achieving the goal: getting their candidate elected.

In 2008, for instance, the McCain campaign suffered greatly from loose-lipped aides who cared more about their own reputations than the candidate's fate.