Barack hires Solis Doyle

[Zablorg]

Source

Patti Solis Doyle, who was fired by Mrs Clinton earlier this year and blamed for strategic errors in the early primaries, will become chief of staff to Mr Obama's vice presidential running mate.

Most concluded that the move was designed to signal that Mrs Clinton will not fill that role as many of her supporters want.

But her appointment is expected to make it easier for other former Clinton staffers to cross over to the Obama campaign.

Miss Solis Doyle is the most prominent Hispanic figure in the Obama campaign. She will help reach a core of voters whose resistance to Mr Obama cost him victory in Texas and Nevada. They also form a sizeable chink of electorates in the swing states of Colorado, New Mexico and Florida in November.

Mr Obama has already increased the number of women in his senior staff, after criticism that his inner circle presented a rather macho posture to the world. His chief spokeswoman is now a woman.

On Monday, Mr Obama also made Stephanie Cutter, formerly a communications director for John Kerry, a senior adviser and chief of staff to his wife Michelle and another woman, Jen O'Malley, his target states director.

Exit polls during the fractious primary battle against Mrs Clinton suggested that Mr Obama will struggle to win over many of her supporters.

But new national surveys put his lead among female voters over John McCain at between four and 19 points, on a par or better than John Kerry and Al Gore, who won women by three and 11 per cent respectively.

Mr Obama's female outreach effort received a boost on Monday when his rival John McCain faced grave embarrassment.

The Republican candidate was forced to cancel a fundraiser in Texas after it emerged that the host, Clayton Williams, once made a tasteless joke about rape when he ran for state governor 20 years ago.

Mr Williams notoriously compared rape to the weather: "As long as it's inevitable, you might as well lie back and enjoy it."

Mr McCain's spokesman, Brian Rogers, said: "These were obviously incredibly offensive remarks that the campaign was unaware of at the time it was scheduled."

The incident reminded some of Mr McCain's own faux pas in 1998, for which he later apologised, when he joked that Chelsea Clinton was "so ugly because her father is Janet Reno", then Bill Clinton's Attorney General.

Clever move mister Obama, yes... But even as we speak, I am planting moles into your forces ready to corrupt your campaign from within! Bwehehehahah!

[Shinova]

CNN's commentators were all going on about how this is a stupid move on Obama's part cause it looks like a slap in Clinton's face or something.

[CmdrWilkens]

Honestly i think this will just feed the rumormongering about a Clinton VP bid since Sollis Doyle was basically ousted by Bill and Mark...not Hillary. The two are long time friends and it would seem REALLY odd that a VP chief of staff would be hired before the VP is hired (since such a person would likely want someone they work well with).

Now that being said I have a feeling that the VP CoS deal is just what her CURRENT posting is. I mean that they want Sollis Doyle onboard (she still has connections to the whole Clinton camp) but they don't yet want to involve her in the actual campaign. So long as she is in a post that doesn't even have someone for her to be staff FOR then she really is just sitting arund twiddling her thumbs BUT is available as soon as Obama finds a place to actually use her.

Once Obama picks a VP and that person brings their entourage onboard Sollis-Doyle will be "re-assigned" to chair a women's outreach committe or some such thing where she will be under Plouffe's watchful eye but still a viable olive branch to the Clinton Camp.