Spooked Clinton sacks campaign manager
February 11, 2008
HILLARY Clinton has sacked her campaign manager, a day after her White House rival Barack Obama swept three state nominating contests in the US presidential election race.
Senator Clinton's former campaign manager, Patti Solis Doyle, announced to campaign staff today that longtime aide Maggie Williams would replace her in the top job.
"I have been proud to manage this campaign and prouder still to call Hillary my friend for more than 16 years," Ms Solis Doyle wrote in an email quoted by the Associated Press.
"Maggie is a remarkable person and I am confident that she will do a fabulous job."
Senator Obama won contests in Washington state, Nebraska and Louisiana over the weekend.
They were contests he had been expected to win, but the margin of his victory showed a renewed momentum to his campaign after he and senator Clinton had emerged from last week's Super Tuesday contests more or less level.
The Clinton campaign - once the frontrunner and odds-on favourite for the Democratic nomination for president - is now trying to cast itself as the underdog.
The Clinton campaign has labeled the Illinois senator the "establishment" candidate as she tries to wrest from him the message of a vow to bring change to Washington.
Senator Clinton, 60, who would be the first woman US president, also made the point on the campaign trail in Maine on Sunday.
"He has increasingly relied on big endorsements and celebrities to sort of attach himself to, to get the kind of validation that comes from that sort of endorsement," she said.
The Obama campaign scoffed at the notion that he was an establishment candidate, saying he had grass-roots support and much of his campaign cash has come from small donors who have flocked to his website.
"The Clinton campaign spin doesn't change the fact that people have chosen Barack Obama in more states because he will actually bring an end to the conventional thinking in Washington unlike his opponent," said Obama campaign spokeswoman Jen Psaki.
theaustralian.news.com.au |
