A Rake’s Progress

Remember Patti Solis Doyle? She was Hillary’s former campaign manager, the person most responsible for the near collapse of the campaign before Maggie Williams came in and set things right.

Ms. Doyle as now been hired by the Obama campaign. In what capacity, you ask?

Her new title is “Chief of Staff to the Vice Presidential Nominee.”

This is how they put it in SF Gate:

Buried in a list of new appointments the Obama campaign announced Monday was this: “Chief of Staff to the Vice Presidential Nominee: Patti Solis Doyle.”

Remember Patti? She was Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager, until she got canned in February…er, left the campaign. Here’s a good backgrounder on her departure from “Hillaryland” — a term, which apparently she coined.

The reaction from Hillarylard. A Clinton insider told CQ: “Translated subtitles aren’t necessary. There is no other way to interpret this other than ‘[Expletive] you.’”

Yeah, yeah, so this is inside-baseball stuff, right? Not really. If PSD is Obama’s czarina of Vice Presidential Nominee, then guess who probably isn’t going to get the nod? Uh-huh. And some of Hillary’s peeps are p.o’d. Like San Francisco’s own Susie Tompkins Buell. She told the Washington Post:

“It’s a slap in the face,” Buell said. “Why would they put somebody that was so clearly ineffective in such a position? It’s a message. We get it.” She said it was a “calculated decision” by the Obama team to “send a message that she [Clinton] is not being considered for the ticket.”

For Clinton supporters, this “F.U.” to Hillary is hardly the way to mend fences and win over the 18 million people who believed in her.

Smart move, Barack.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/b/a/2008/06/16/nov05election-after_this_expl.DTL

From American Research Group –

Nate Silver, aka Poblano, of fivethirtyeight.com continued his losing streak this week by incorrectly predicting that Barack Obama would easily win the South Dakota Democratic primary. This followed Mr. Silver’s failure to accurately predict the outcome of the Democratic primary in Kentucky on May 20.

In Kentucky, Mr. Silver missed the turnout by 200,851 votes and he missed the vote for Hillary Clinton by 179,471 votes. This is an error rate of over 40% for turnout and over 64% for Clinton. Of the 200,851 vote error in turnout, 179,471 votes (over 89%) are from Senator Clinton.

In South Dakota, Mr. Silver’s projected turnout was over 34% too high, his projection for Barack Obama was off by over 57%, and Senator Obama did not win in South Dakota as Mr. Silver so confidently predicted.

Mr. Silver’s predictions provide great fuel for speculation on the Internet, but even he admits choosing from many possible outcomes when making his final predictions. His final predictions reveal his personal biases as he continues to incorrectly make causal claims from statistical associations.

Now that the coronation ceremonies are beginning for Barack Obama, many of Hillary’s supporters are looking for a way to tell the world that they are not to blame for this political mutation.

Some are in the streets protesting, others are making home made signs. But everywhere the message is the same: “Don’t blame me, I voted for Hillary!”

By the time the Denver Democratic Convention comes around, there will be a Democratic stampede over to John McCain’s side. It is starting already.

“For 35 years people have been asking me if there will be a female president, and I have always said, ‘not in my lifetime,’” she said. “I still feel that way. The patterns of history are that, at the upper levels, we see different varieties of men first. The female comes later.”

Steinem said disgruntled Democratic-leaning women ultimately will back Obama. Besides, she suggested, much of their ire should be aimed at the news media, not the candidates.

“The media was in love with Obama,” Steinem said, “and in hate with Hillary, hands down.”

Click here for the complete AP story.