Mrs. Clinton’s supporters were increasingly surprised that Mr. Obama had out-organized her in state after state, and those losses were adding to their concern.
Mrs. Clinton has explained her losses by saying that caucuses disenfranchise voters because their hours are limited and that she does better when a broader cross-section of voters can participate. But the stream of losses came at the same time that the campaign announced that it was low on money and had required a $5 million loan from Mrs. Clinton to keep going. The campaign has raised more than $10 million since Feb. 1, but the image of a campaign in trouble has lingered.
At the same time, Ms. Doyle had come into the campaign with a plan to build a vast online network of donors who can be tapped at any time for infusions of cash. That goal appears to have been achieved by the Obama campaign, while Mrs. Clinton continues to rely on big donors who months ago gave the limit, $2,300, to the primary campaign.
The campaign, too, was never supposed to go on this long. The campaign’s expectation was to wrap it all up by Feb. 5, but with Mr. Obama picking up states and delegates there is widespread anticipation that the race can continue through late spring, with even some thought that it will not be resolved until the Democratic National Convention in August.
The campaign had braced for a shake-up ever since Mrs. Clinton lost Iowa, but it was delayed because Mrs. Clinton unexpectedly won New Hampshire. At that point, Ms. Williams, a longtime friend of Mrs. Clinton’s, had been worked into the campaign structure along with Ms. Doyle, and over time “it just became untenable for both of them to be essentially sharing the same job,” as one campaign ally put it.
Some Clinton campaign advisers pointed out that Mark Penn, the author of “Micro-Trends,” is the campaign’s chief strategist and that Ms. Doyle had to operate within his plan, which some characterized as small bore and lacking the inspiration of Mr. Obama’s message. It was not immediately clear if other campaign aides would be replaced.
Some Clinton advisers rued the timing, noting that Matt Drudge referred to the switch on his Web site as the departure of the campaign’s “top Latina” — an emphasis on Ms. Doyle’s ethnicity that Mrs. Clinton does not need as she heads toward a Texas primary on March 4 and tries to court the state’s large Hispanic vote. |
