Republican front-runner Ronald Reagan in 1980 and Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton in 2008 — their campaign stories are remarkably similar. Both, heavily favored, stumbled and were upset in the Iowa caucuses by younger, less well-known challengers — George H.W. Bush and Barack Obama.

Both Reagan and Clinton, on the strength of their personal campaign performances, rebounded to win the New Hampshire primary. But the similarity between them ended in how they confronted, 28 years apart, major personnel changes in their campaign staffs.

For the then-69-year-old Reagan, who had lost Iowa after essentially bypassing the state, New Hampshire was make or break. When the Federal Election Commission ruled that the Nashua Telegraph newspaper's sponsorship of a debate, three days before the primary, between Reagan and Bush would constitute an illegal corporate contribution to the two candidates' campaigns, Reagan's campaign agreed to pay the $3,500 cost.

Reagan's campaign manager had invited the other Republican candidates —  Sens. Howard Baker and Bob Dole, along with Reps. John Anderson and Phil Crane — to participate. Bush balked at including the others. When Reagan insisted, the debate moderator and editor of the Telegraph Jon Breen ordered, "Turn Mr. Reagan's microphone off."

A visibly angered Reagan won the evening with one defiant line: "I'm paying for this microphone, Mr. Green (sic)." That memorable exchange dominated the news coverage for the next three days: Game, set, match, Mr. Reagan!

For Hillary Clinton, her New Hampshire moment arrived on the Monday before Tuesday's primary, which her campaign clearly expected to lose to Obama. Sitting at a table of undecided voters in Portsmouth's Cafe Espresso, Clinton was asked by Marianne Pernold Young: "My question is very personal: How do you do it? How do you — keep upbeat and so wonderful?"

Clinton, obviously moved by Young's kindness, and with her voice cracking and her eyes misting, responded: "Some people think elections are a game, lots of who's up or who's down. It's about our country. It's about our kids' futures. It's about all of us together."

A single friendly question transformed Clinton from the Ice Queen-Policy Wonk with her patented four-point answers into an approachable, open human being. That exchange, played literally hundreds of time on TV news over the next day and a half, moved enough women voters to give Clinton an upset win.

But here's one big difference between the Gipper and Hillary. Reagan, who in early 1980 had grown increasingly uncomfortable with his strategically brilliant, but admittedly uncollegial, manager John P. Sears, on the afternoon of the New Hampshire primary — before the returns came in — told Sears and his two able deputies, Charlie Black and Jim Lake, that they were "resigning" from the campaign. It was brutally surgical and final.

In early January 2008, Hillary Clinton was widely reported to be dissatisfied with the performance of the individuals responsible for the message, strategy and communications of her no-longer-inevitable campaign. But instead of biting it, Clinton nibbled on the bullet by bringing on board trusted talents Maggie Williams and Doug Sosnik, along with Texas advertising success Roy Spence.

 But Clinton, unlike Reagan, replaced no one. She chose the worst of all personnel policies, she "layered" new people onto old people.

Every campaign — as well as every administration — is inevitably and ultimately a mirror reflection of the candidate who leads it. Richard Nixon's criminality and paranoia infected those who worked for him; Jimmy Carter's insularity and mistrustfulness of newcomers characterized his own White House years; George W. Bush's absence of curiosity and discomfort with dissent have been sad hallmarks of his administration.

When president Ronald Reagan fired the nation's striking air-traffic controllers, it would come as no great surprise to those who had covered the 1980 primary day "massacre" in Manchester. What does her own Manchester layering-compromise tell us about a future Clinton administration?

To find out more about Mark Shields and read his past columns, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com.