WASHINGTON — Coming off a downbeat weekend marked by a series of defeats, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton shook up her staff Sunday, replacing her campaign manager with a trusted senior aide from the Clinton White House years in hopes of reinvigorating her candidacy.
The Clinton campaign announced that Patti Solis Doyle was being replaced as campaign manager even before the final Maine numbers confirmed that she had lost the Democratic caucuses to Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois. With 99% of the precincts reporting, Obama had 59%, Clinton 40%.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Tuesday, February 12, 2008 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 39 words Type of Material: Correction
Clinton's campaign: An article in Monday's Section A about changes that Hillary Rodham Clinton is making amid a tight Democratic presidential race said the campaign had repaid a $5-million loan from the candidate. The loan has not been repaid.
With his win in Maine, Obama enjoyed a clean sweep over the weekend, after finishing first on Saturday in the Washington state and Nebraska caucuses and in the Louisiana primary. That gives Obama fresh momentum as the two candidates pivot to Tuesday's so-called Potomac primaries, in Virginia, Maryland and Washington. A Clinton campaign official said privately Sunday that the campaign expects to lose all three contests.
Solis Doyle's successor will be Maggie Williams, who served as chief of staff to then-First Lady Clinton.
An overhaul of Clinton's senior staff had been rumored for months as her national lead shrank and she struggled to keep pace with Obama's prodigious fundraising.
Clinton has raised about $130 million, but she was recently compelled to loan her campaign $5 million out of her personal funds. (The campaign has since paid it back.) Privately, some donors have said the campaign was slow to use the Internet to raise money, relying too heavily on the Clintons' old fundraising network.
With the nomination up for grabs and no quick end in sight, campaign supporters, donors and the staff itself wanted new energy and perhaps a different approach, and Clinton made the change.
"Every campaign, at a certain point, needs an injection of new blood, new leadership," said Lanny Davis, a campaign supporter and former Clinton White House special counsel.
In a statement, Clinton said: "Patti Solis Doyle has done an extraordinary job in getting us to this point -- within reach of the nomination -- and I am enormously grateful for her friendship and her outstanding work. I am lucky to have Maggie on board and I know she will lead our campaign with great skill toward the nomination."
