Over the course of a few hours yesterday, Barack Obama brought Hillary Clinton’s former campaign manager onto his team, and after receiving Al Gore’s endorsement, devoted a fair amount of his speech to praising Clinton’s contributions and accomplishments.<\/p>\n
Great news? Signs of bringing the party back together? Regrettably, not so much.<\/p>\n
I noted yesterday<\/a> that Patti Solis Doyle’s hire — she was brought in to be the chief of staff to Obama’s yet-to-be-named running mate — probably indicates that Clinton will not be on the Democratic ticket. Solis Doyle was Clinton’s campaign manager and trusted confidante for years, but internal campaign management issues led Clinton to fire her a few months ago, and the two haven’t spoken in quite some time. Given this, the Obama campaign probably wouldn’t have given her this specific position if it had any intention of bringing Clinton on as the VP candidate.<\/p>\n But the heated response<\/a> from a few Clinton supporters seems a little over the top. OK, more than a little.<\/p>\n A former bundler to Hillary Clinton just called in to tell me that Barack Obama’s selection of Patti Solis Doyle as chief of staff to the campaign’s eventual vice presidential nominee is the “biggest f**k you I have ever seen in politics.” […]<\/p>\n The bundler said that Clinton loyalists were livid over the pick. “You don’t hire Patti Solis Doyle for her operational expertise,” said the bundler. “You don’t do that. This is someone who failed dramatically at her job. You only bring her on to f**k someone else.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Susie Tompkins Buell, a prominent Clinton donor, said, “It’s a slap in the face<\/a>.”<\/p>\n I can appreciate the fact that Solis Doyle is not the most popular person in Clinton circles right now, and some blame her directly for some of the campaign’s early difficulties, but this is hardly the “biggest f**k you I have ever seen in politics.” During his (lengthy) remarks tonight, Obama made his own pitch for unity — taking note of the noise the crowd had made while Granholm had been speaking [about Hillary Clinton] and then, when one audience member began booing again, singling him (or her?) out by saying “I’m talking to you up there.” Obama repeated many of the lines he’d used before, hailing Clinton for “lifting the sights of young women across America, including my daughters.” He also added one I hadn’t heard before, although I suspect it’s not new either: “And she’s tough. That’s why this race took so long. She’s a fighter. And we need fighters in the Democratic Party.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n These are not the words of a candidate who wants to deliberately slight his former rival.<\/p>\n For another, even the Clinton campaign is complimenting the hire and praising Solis Doyle. “Patti will be an asset and good addition to the Obama campaign,” Mo Elleithee said. “After nearly two decades in political life, she brings with her the ability to tap an extensive network that will be a huge asset to Sen. Obama. As Sen. Clinton has said, we’re all going to do our part to help elect Sen. Obama as the next president of the United States.” This doesn’t sound especially irate; Clinton’s office didn’t need to issue a statement at all.<\/p>\n It’s certainly possible there are personal, behind-the-scenes conflicts playing out that I’m not aware of, but yesterday’s announcement isn’t that<\/i> controversial. The Obama campaign was always going to hire some of Clinton’s former aides, and Solis Doyle is a long-time friend of Obama strategist David Axelrod. What’s more, Obama had made diversity a priority, and this move brings a well-known Latino woman onto the team.<\/p>\n Patti Solis Doyle “devoted her adult life to working for Clinton<\/a>.” For the Obama campaign to give her a reasonably important position is not a “slap in the face,” and it’s certainly not the “biggest f**k you I have ever seen in politics.” In all likelihood, the announcement makes the chances of an Obama\/Clinton ticket less likely<\/a>, but to characterize the hire itself as an outrageous insult seems more than a little excessive.<\/p>\n I guess the rule is, Obama can hire former Clinton aides, but only those who remain well-liked by Clinton supporters?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Over the course of a few hours yesterday, Barack Obama brought Hillary Clinton’s former campaign manager onto his team, and after receiving Al Gore’s endorsement, devoted a fair amount of his speech to praising Clinton’s contributions and accomplishments. Great news? Signs of bringing the party back together? Regrettably, not so much. I noted yesterday that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15898","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15898","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15898"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15898\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\nFor one thing, love him or hate him, Obama isn’t crazy. He’s been going out of his way to praise Clinton at every available opportunity. Indeed, Obama did so again last night<\/a> in Detroit.<\/p>\n