I think that this does not rule out an HRC VP position, I certainly think it would be nearly as productive as a JK/JE ticket with three huge egos, two people who think they are president, and then Barack. There is no way the Clintons would ever accept a backseat role and sit there quietly.

I'm not a pundit, but I play one on the internets so I have some comments.

I thought this was a strange turn of events, as well. I didn't jump to the conclusion that Senator Clinton was out I just found the idea of selecting a chief of staff before the VP odd. But, then two things occurred to me:

1. Maybe they have selected a VP candidate but are waiting to announce.

2. Once they hire and start paying someone it will show up on the disclosures coming out in a couple of weeks. Better to announce the hire than have to explain it after the disclosures?

Seriously, though. Is Senator Clinton better as VP or back in the Senate where she can help get legislation through? I don't know the answer, but I think about this often. I think we often under value the importance of a strong Senate.

On your last graph: I'm also torn... I'm not sure I'd rather have her stay in the Senate too or be VP. I see so many pros and cons on it that I haven't made up my mind on what I'm hoping will happen (if that makes sense).

On your 2 points: yep, which then begs the question -- why hire someone who was FIRED? I was hoping the Dem party would get beyond recycling losers, but alas....

"I was hoping the Dem party would get beyond recycling losers, but alas...."

Well, harsh as it is, it's time you realized that we will never get beyond this... I'm not going to list them, it's just too sad.

1) Solis-Doyle is from Chicago. She worked for Daley and her brother is an Alderman. I'm sure her, Obama and Axelrod all run in the same Chicago political circle.

2) Her parents were immigrants from Mexico. Might have been brought along to help Obama's problem with Hispanics?

3) She was Clinton's campaign manager for her 2000 and 2006 campaigns. She can't be a complete idiot. I'm sure that her and Clinton remain close, even though she might have not been thrilled with her '08 performance.

I wouldn't read too much into this.

I heard that last time, they hired an Edwards person before picking Edwards as VP.

But yeah, seems like an odd staffing decision overall.

Ah, well.

When I heard the news, before I saw the negative reaction from the Clinton supporters, I thought it was a curious decision but did not interpret it as a sign either way on who would be VP. I figured that they needed to give her a role of some sort and setting up the team and office for whoever is eventually picked is probably not something she can screw up too much. I also read somewhere, I think it was on Marc Ambinder's blog, that once a VP is picked that person will likely have the power to choose their own chief of staff so it may be just a temporary position for her until the VP nom is announced and then she will be moved somewhere else.

I suspect Obama's reasoning for hiring her was to try and mend fences with some of the Latino/a community that was very upset with Clinton's firing of her. Now he may not have thought it through as much as he should have and may not have intended it to be taken as foreshadowing of the VP, or he may have. I dunno. But I suspected that foreshadowing was not teh campaign's primary objective in bringing her on board or giving her this role.

Actually, when Solis Doyle left the Clinton campaign she began a "Dream Ticket" effort to have Obama and Clinton to run on the same ticket, so I don't think her hiring is an obstacle to a join ticket.

I do think Obama understands how many older women felt/feel about Hillary Clinton making history the way his candidacy does for people of color.

In the end does that mean he picks her?

So far, I've read that Hilda Solis Doyle was incompetent, and that Hillary's victories in 2000 and 2006 were in spite of that, not because of it.

And I've read that Mark Penn spread those rumors to deflect blame from himself.

And I've read that HSD and HRC haven't spoken since she was fired.

And now I've read that HSD and HRC are still on good terms.

I'm gonna go with the simplest explanation, which was that she's part of the Chicago clique.

But these could also be part of an effort to show how woman-friendly he is - her hire was announced on the same day as Stephanie Cutter's and Jen O'Malley Dillon's.

I haven't seen news in 3 days and am much happier for it. But for what it's worth, I did hear about Patti, and had exactly the opposite reaction. I thought it was a sure sign that Hillary would be VP.

Just my 2 cents: Just because she may not be a great campaign manager doesn't mean she isn't a great Chief of Staff. Two very different jobs.

At the risk of poking folks in the eye... I suppose what annoys me is that potentially we'd not be having this discussion if she were a man.

Jerry touched on this a bit in his coment, and I'd like to expand on it by saying why is all the focus on her? Why aren't we taking to task other members of the team and where they have ended up? Lanny Davis going to FOX News, foreinstance.

It's amazing that although she appears to be every bit the political professional as her male counter parts we call her a failure over what I suspect she had less control over than you all might think. Seriously who was really going to manage Bill? Mark Penn? Lanny? Carville?

If the strategy was flawed, seemed to me to be a collective failure and not something I'd tag one person with.

Based on the above comments, should Donna Brazille never get a job in DC again cause she "failed" Al Gore. Give me a break.

Whatever this hire may or may not telegraph just about all the staff folks I've encountered from the HRC campaign were political nomads and professionals. They traveled all over the country to take all sorts of roles and responsiblities they were building their carreers on this campaign and unless I'd had some direct personal experience with them that was unprofessional and negative, I would certainly wish them well on any new gig they could get.

I've heard that Team Obama will be hiring upwards of 40% of the HRC staff, so obviously at least his team thinks they would be an asset.

"I suppose what annoys me is that potentially we'd not be having this discussion if she were a man."

Replace 'woman' with 'White Southern Male' and you'd get a lot of the same speculation about demographic pandering. And we've roasted Penn, McAullife, et al's chestnuts over an open fire on several occasions.

Democratic consultants in general need themselves a strict win/loss record card, perhaps broken down by region and demographic within that region. Then we'd know who works well where.

should Donna Brazille never get a job in DC again cause she "failed" Al Gore.

I would answer that question "yes." And I would say the same thing for Bob Shrum as well.

CEOs should also get paid for the performance of their company.

You can have the story one of two ways - the fancy consultants and such either can change a candidate's performance in an election (in which case they should be held brutally accountable given the stakes), or they are thrown about by circumstance and don't really deserve bigger bucks than anyone else rowing the big ship.

Well, tell us how you really feel!

I hope the folks out there calling for heads to roll and bloodletting remember that we don't seem to have much of a mechanism to back fill these roles once everyone has declared "off with their heads".

Given the current barelyhangingonbyour fingernails on a good day, throwing folks under the bus and making examples of them doesn't seem to be a very "progressive" way to build future structure and encourage folks to play on our field.

In the same way we need to build a candidate bench we also need to build a support staff and management bench. This kicking to the curb mentality is very sad to me.

I was always impressed with the opposition who placed, groomed and employed folks with an eye to future leadership.

This vengeance kick is very unattractive in my mind.

They also separated wheat from chaff as well.

What I'm talking about is a difference between the uber-super guru one-stop-shoppers who demand a mint but continuously fail us, and more humble managers that see themselves as part of a team rowing hard to get where we need to go.

Take the quality of candidates like Bush v. Gore, for example. That was a very pricey piece of political malpractice that allowed those two men to look anything alike either in character or in competence.

So, yes, we need a bench. Put part of that is having a promotion path whereby those that are not performing or moved out of the way for those that are learning their trade well.

Also, there's a difference between never working a campaign again and being made to step down a couple of notches to go back and try to figure things out.

For example, Shrum. Never gets to lead a presidential campaign again without major proof that he's uncovered some magical secret for his past failures.

He's free to run all the Senate campaigns he wants, though. Those seem to be more his speed.

And that's what's happening here: She's not being asked to be a campaign manager, she's being hired as a Chief of staff.

Besides, the more we blame her for the failure of that campaign, the less we recognize the spectacular candidate that is Obama. Are there any campaign managers out there that could have blunted his impact any better? He really is pretty impressive. I also believe that if the sequence of primaries had been different, the results very well might have been different. What if Michigan didn't break the scheduling rules? They likely still would have gone heavily to Clinton and changed the dynamic for the rest of the states. And what campaign manager would have predicted that their opponent was going to resonate so strongly with young voters AND be able to turn them out for Iowa, and what would they have done about it anyway?

But I am still mystified by them filling this position before the VP nomination is made. If they just want her on the campaign, they could have invented any of a 100 different titles for her. The big question mark is that we just really don't know what her relationship is with the Clinton's right now. Are they really mad at her? Hasn't she been actively pushing to get HRC the VP slot?

Thanks Jerry, as usual you said just what I was thinking.

Now Joe Trippi on the other hand....

I wonder if part of the problem here is regionalism ... A mean, many are successful in some Senatorial and Gubernatorial campaigns, and then jump up to national politics and fall down.

But yeah, Trippi. He always seems to choose candidates I like. Although they apparently don't do so well with him...

I'm not sure what "the problem" even is. We are talking about a woman who is being hired at the very upper levels of a presidential campaign after a very successful career so far. Losing one campaign by a very small amount to the most charismatic candidate we have had in a while while still raising the second most amount of money in history and getting either the most votes or the second most amount of votes (depending on who you ask) is nothing really to be too embarrassed about. Some people may want there to be a problem there, but I just don't know what it would be.

I was thinking the problem with national Democratic strategists in general.