Clinton campaigner exits ‘Hillaryland’

'Hillaryland' was rocked yesterday by the sudden announcement that Hillary Clinton's campaign manager, Patti Solis Doyle (pictured), was stepping down. Her exit, announced in an email to campaign staff, came the day after Clinton lost to Barack Obama in the Louisiana, Nebraska and Washington state primaries and on the same day the Maine caucus went to Obama too. But did Solis Doyle jump or was she pushed?

Insiders are suggesting that it was a complicated mix of the two. They say something had to change with the Clinton losses building up and with campaign funds running dangerously low compared with Obama's. Clinton was forced to lend her campaign $5m last week, but there was still not enough money to buy television ads in Louisiana.

"In part, this was Patti's choice," a senior campaign adviser told The Atlantic.com. "She knew that when things start to get funky, you have to make, for appearance sake, some changes."

On the other hand, there are genuine practical reasons for her quitting: Solis Doyle has young children and had never expected the campaign to go the distance, having hoped like everyone else in Hillaryland that it would all be over by Super Tuesday at the latest.

However, insiders say Solis Doyle must take some of the blame for the fact that the campaign is not wrapped up. It was Solis Doyle who persuaded Clinton not to begin running for president until she had formally declared, and this is thought to have put her at a fundraising disadvantage. More important, as a native of Chicago, where Obama cut his political teeth, she did not predict the threat that Obama would pose. There are also questions about her ability to run such a big team - about 500 people work on the Clinton campaign.

A daughter of Mexican immigrants, and the first Latina to run a presidential campaign, Solis Doyle, 42, is to be replaced by Maggie Williams, who was Hillary Clinton's chief of staff when she was First Lady.