Hiring Diversity Wins Elections
For those who remember when national political campaigns were the exclusive preserve of white men, both as candidates and campaign aides, it is with great joy that we see Hillary breaking the mold as a woman candidate for President and achieving her electoral victories with a Mexican-American woman as her campaign chief. Senator Clinton's leadership values were rewarded this November, when campaign chief Patti Solis Doyle helped lead the Clinton Senate campaign in a resounding 2-to-1 victory over the Republican opponent. Results
Patti Solis Doyle: a Mexican-American Woman
with Strong Leadership Skills
Clinton's campaign manager is disciplined and tough.
Her name is Patti Solis Doyle, and the job of mapping out the senator’s national political strategy falls to her. Indeed, as the news media buzz grows around Mrs. Clinton’s political ambitions, Ms. Solis Doyle has worked in the shadows wooing prominent donors over dinners, meeting with some of the Democratic Party’s top talent for potential campaign openings, and conferring with Mrs. Clinton on an almost daily basis.
Officially, Ms. Solis Doyle, 41, is the executive director of Hillpac, known widely as Hillary Inc., a vast political operation that has employed as many as 50 press assistants, opposition researchers, media specialists and fund-raisers at any one time. But Ms. Solis Doyle’s title does not begin to convey the singular role she has played for Mrs. Clinton since the two women crossed paths about 16 years ago.
So, Senator Clinton and her top aide share a bond that goes far beyond the present election cycle, and Solis’ leadership has played a crucial role.
Ms. Solis Doyle solidified her leadership in Team Clinton in 2000, when she was dispatched to New York from the White House to restore order to Mrs. Clinton’s first campaign for the Senate after it became top-heavy with strong-willed consultants with different ideas about the direction of the campaign. (Some Clinton associates have come to refer to two distinct periods in that race: "B.P. and A.P.," or "Before Patti" and "After Patti.")
Over the past six years, Ms. Solis Doyle has been the architect of an expensive and potentially risky strategy to build a list of hundreds of thousands of small donors who the campaign hopes would quickly provide contributions if Mrs. Clinton announced plans to run for president . . . Some of her closest advisers have likened it to flicking a switch that will lead to a torrent of donations.
Like many of Clinton’s aides, Solis has a longstanding relationship with the Senator, based on performance and loyalty.
Mrs. Clinton was an obscure first lady of a small state when she met Ms. Solis Doyle, then a recent Northwestern University graduate who had considered becoming an elementary school teacher. Ms. Solis Doyle became Mrs. Clinton’s chief scheduler in Arkansas and held the same job in the White House . . .
A daughter of Mexican immigrants, Ms. Solis Doyle has a playful manner that masks what associates say is her brutally competitive nature. It is her wont to cackle and then exclaim "Poor little thing!" when misfortune befalls a rival (the gaffe-prone Jeanine F. Pirro, the former Westchester County district attorney, comes to mind, for example).
As it turns out, that rough-and-tumble streak runs in her family. Her eldest brother, Daniel Solis, is the president of the notoriously unruly City Council in Chicago, where Ms. Solis Doyle grew up on the city’s mostly poor South Side.
Senator Clinton runs a tight ship, and is notorious for surrounding herself with extremely discrete aides in whom she can trust explicitly, so that the campaign carefully controls its message. Ms. Solis’ role now is in implementing the electoral strategy of America’s first woman President.
Ms. Solis Doyle’s job is a grueling one, routinely forcing her to work well past midnight, as the late-night e-mail and instant messages that she sends attest. "She’s my friend," Ms. Solis Doyle said, offering an explanation for her devotion to Mrs. Clinton. "You think I would do this for anybody else?" NYT
People who know Ms. Solis Doyle swear by her commitment to Senator Clinton and the Democratic Party.
"Here’s the bottom line: She is loyal," said Peter Ragone, a veteran Democratic strategist who was a member of Al Gore’s 2000 presidential campaign. NYT
Assuming that Senator Clinton is victorious in the 2008 Democratic Primaries and the General Election, Ms. Solis Doyle will undoubtedly continue offering her leadership to America in the Hillary Rodham Clinton Administration.
Meanwhile, Senator Clinton is pulling ahead of the rest of the Democratic pack according to new polling data from the Washington Post.
Among Democrats, Clinton leads the field with 39 percent, followed by Obama at 17 percent, Edwards at 12 percent, former vice president Al Gore at 10 percent and Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.), the party's 2004 nominee, at 7 percent. No other Democrat received more than 2 percent.
When those surveyed were asked their second choice, Clinton's advantage became even more evident. She is the first or second choice of 60 percent of those surveyed, with Obama second at 33 percent.
Clinton receives significantly higher support among women than men (49 percent to 29 percent) and is favored by more moderates than liberals. Obama has almost equal support among men and women but has twice as much support among liberals as among moderates. WaPost