I know the photographer who covered Corey Booker's campaign who later when on to cover Stacey Abrams. He has some incredible stuff from that time period and I've always wondered just what was in his archive.
As I recall, Flickr used to host White House images. Was this something you were wanting to profit from, or just put out to the world? No judgment, just curious.
No two photographers work exactly the same. So all we can do is speculate.
I shoot volume headshots, and I rarely have more than 5 minutes to work with someone. You are correct, headshots should be mid-chest up. I personally give a lot of direction, and I also let the subjects choose which image they want to be edited (they get one for volume jobs). The only thing I expect from my subjects is to read my pre-shoot guide (grooming tips mostly) and to listen to my instructions. I wasn't there, so I don't know that you could have done anything differently.
I've found with headshot work that people are often their own worst enemies. A very common scenario is for someone who actually is photogenic (or who at least photographed better than average) to tell me they hate every single photo, and all of their coworkers tell them "THESE ARE THE BEST PHOTOS EVER!!" Or I get folks who immediately proclaim to me that they are not photogenic, ugly, require an immense level of retouching, etc. before the first photo is even taken. It's very hard to achieve something positive in a short time frame when someone immediately dumps a ton of negativity into the situation from the very start. So if you began your interaction with the photographer on the "I'm not photographable" train, then that may have contributed. Otherwise, it's hard to say.