The Hillary Camp dumped Patti Solis Doyle as campaign manager over the weekend. Of course, the Clintonistas had to come up with spin that was at least partially digestible.
What did they concoct for Patti Solis Doyle? That the campaign was too long. Call it the "No Se Puede" excuse. Pretty Lame! However, very characteristic of the Clintonistas' " telenovela" approach to presidential campaigning.
Of course, my follow-up question is: Yes, but why did they dump you?
Who are they kidding? These are hard boiled political apparatchiks fully cognizant of the demands of political campaigns. If Ms Doyle was such a great manager, wouldn't she have planned to remain at least through to the completion of the primary season? Moreover, doesn't the primary season end in just a few months or before someone collects 2,000 delegates? It’s a gig of a lifetime for political consultants but for Ms. Doyle--we’re told—it’s “too long”.
So, why dump Ms Solis? (Officially, Ms Doyle simply chose to demote herself to "advisor".)
It's clear that the Clintonistas--with jazzy Bill, and a boatload of endorsements from African American party hacks, assumed Hillary had the Black vote sewn up.
Of course, Barack Obama was never the “easy to beat Black guy from Chicago” that the Clintonistas imagined. So, when the campaign used Bill Clinton's old southern strategy with its liberal use of the race-card, it back-fired; Hillary was crushed and her campaign has been hemorrhaging Black and progressive white votes ever since.
The solution?
Replace the campaign's Latina face with an African American one.
This strategy is too clever by half. That is, the Clintonistas really believe that African Americans turned off by the Clintons will now abandon Obama on account of Maggie Williams?
Moreover, what about Latinos? Are they so easily dissed? Apparently, the Clintons think so. (But don’t expect any of the Latino hacks on the Tara Plantation to utter a word.)
It’s about March 4th.
The Clintonistas are clearly focused on the absolutely critical March 4th primaries in Pennsylvania, Texas and Ohio. The demotion of Ms Doyle is more clearly understood within this frame.
While Latinos are a formidable bloc in Texas, they have a tiny electoral footprint in in Ohio and Pennsylvania. The contest in those states will be fought over the traditional party factions of city Blacks, blue collar workers, old-style liberals and the social security class.
(BTW: Complicating the usual racial calculus in Pennsylvania and Ohio, is the fact that promising African American gubernatorial candidates lost recent elections to status-quo white candidates.)
Pennsylvania - Clintonistas expected Gov. Eddie Rendell and the state's labor unions to deliver a majority of blue collar Democrats--people that cleave to the status-quo and are unhappy with Latino immigrants.
Ohio - Clintonistas expect Gov. Sherrod Brown and labor unions to do for Ohio what Eddie & company will do in PA.
The Clintons are set to go dirty, again. With Obama winning so many --perhaps all --of the primaries leading up to March 4th, the Clintonistas will--because they're Clintonistas--go ballistic against Obama in Pennsylvania and Ohio.
With Ms Doyle out of the way, look for the Clintonistas to deliver, via public and subterranean channels, a nativist-tinged message.
A related message will be that Hillary cares more for working families and women than Obama. A highly visible African American campaign manager (and all of the stereotypes that's supposed to convey) will be used -- along with Hillary herself, labor bosses, Bill, et al., to close the deal.
Texas - I can only imagine that the Clintonistas believe they can keep Latinos, get the White vote and neutralize Obama's African American advantage--all at the same time.
This assumes that Tejano party hacks will model California Chicano party hacks in rounding up and delivering--with the aid of Univision--a bullet-proof " telenovela" vote for Hillary. I suspect that's Ms Doyle's true assignment for the next few weeks. Bill and Hillary will round up White “Yellow Dog” Democrats. And Maggie Williams--with Black Democrat party folks and allied ministers--will work hard to warm forks up for "Southern" Hillary against Chicago Barry.
Therefore, the "No, Se Puede" spin is just that -- spin.
The real message? No, We Can't--"No Se Puede"--win/ganar honestly.
You see it similarly to how I see this move. I can't believe that they did this. I wrote about it on my blog, and then I got an e-mail from Clinton's Director of Hispanic Communications. Have they contacted you yet? :)
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