Well, fearless readers, I am stumped. The Obama organization has just announced a new hire. From the Washington Post:
The Obama campaign announced on Monday that it has chosen Patti Solis
Doyle to a key general election post, making her the first prominent
Clinton official to make the leap to the other side.
But it is not exactly being seen by Clinton loyalists as an olive branch.
Obama is installing Solis Doyle as chief of staff to the future vice
presidential nominee, who has not yet been picked. Given that Solis
Doyle was fired from the Clinton campaign, is now at odds with several
senior officials who remained and has a strained relationship with Sen.
Hillary Rodham Clinton herself these days, the appointment may well
signal that Clinton's chances of being picked for the vice presidential
slot are close to nil.
Picking Solis Doyle to be Chief of Staff to an as yet unnamed VP may indeed be Obama's way of saying that the VP ain't gonna be Hillary. But wouldn't it have been cheaper to just come out and say "it ain't gonna be Hillary."
I blogged about Solis Doyle in February. Senator Clinton fired Solis Doyle, her campaign manager, just at the moment when it was too late. Looking back on it now, that was the moment that Hillary Clinton lost the 2008 nomination. Joshua Green's piece on the Clinton campaign had just appeared in The Atlantic, and it was devastating.
If Green was right, Solis Doyle was disastrously incompetent. She created dissension within the ranks of the Clinton campaign, she spent millions upon millions to no effect, she failed to win over key support for Senator Clinton, and was largely responsible for the most fatal decision that Senator Clinton made: waiting to officially enter the race long enough to give Obama an opening. If you look up big mistake in the dictionary, you will see Solis Doyle's picture. Her one virtue was that she was a creature of Ms. Clinton, having devoted her adult life to Hillary's ambitions.
The Obama organization cannot possibly have chosen Solis Doyle because she is the best manager they can find for the VP to be named later. Moreover, the choice threatens to poison the atmosphere between the two camps just when you would think that Obama would want to be building bridges. After all, Clinton did fire Solis Doyle.
Although Solis Doyle devoted her adult life to working for Clinton and
once counted her among her closest friends, her departure from the
campaign was a rough one. Loyalists openly blamed her for the internal
warring and strategic failures; after she left, Clinton expressed hard
feelings toward Solis Doyle for the way money had been spent. Fairly or
not, Solis Doyle is not the person the Obama campaign would pick to
send a signal that it is about to welcome Clinton on board. If
anything, some Clinton loyalists privately said, it is an insult.
Well, actually, it looks like a slap across Ms. Clinton's face. I once thought that a Clinton/Obama ticket would be invincible. I always thought that an Obama/Clinton ticket was unlikely. Hillary has too much independent support, and Bill is too unpredictable, to make her an affordable choice. The VP has to be strictly under control If I am right, and Obama has no intention of choosing Hillary as his running mate, then hiring Solis Doyle looks likely to further alienate the Clintons.
I am accustomed to understanding why politicians do what they do, even when they do something stupid. It's not that I am all that smart; it's just that politics is usually not all that mysterious. But I can't quite figure this one out. Unless ...
This is shear speculation, but it might be that Solis Doyle has something on the Clintons. God knows what. But that might allow Obama to control the Clintons, which in turn is only important if he thinks that they might actually become an obstacle to his election. It does seem to me that Senator Clinton's best bet for the Presidency hinges on an Obama loss this fall. I don't know how they might contrive that, assuming purely for the sake of argument that they should contrive it. In order not to alienate the party, Hillary has to look like she is supporting Obama with all her resources. But if he loses anyway, she is in a great position for 2012. Maybe he's paranoid, and maybe he has some reason to worry about the Clintons that I am not privy to.
Again, I am pulling all this out of my butt. But so far, it's the only reason I can think of for hiring the most disastrous campaign manager in recent history to be part of your organization.
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