Clinton Replaces Top Aide Amid Losses

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Presidential Candidates Boost Campaign Efforts

The Republican and Democratic presidential candidates make a final appeal to voters before the "Potomac Primaries" of Maryland, Virginia and D.C. on Feb. 12, 2008.

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Williams arrived on what she told friends would be a 30-day assignment to help oversee operations and review the campaign's management. She did not displace Doyle but there was, according to one account, tension between the two.

By one account, Williams decided early last week to return to her consulting firm, her temporary assignment over. By another, she announced that she was leaving to send a signal to Clinton that the dual management structure was untenable.

Another senior adviser said the replacement represents a major shift in the dynamics of the campaign, putting much more power into the hands of the campaign manager than Doyle had enjoyed.

Donna Brazile, who was Al Gore's campaign manager in 2000, said Williams, like Doyle, knows the candidate well and has her full trust. "Maggie's tough," she said. "She knows more than how to make the trains run on time. She knows how to break some heads."

Doyle, the daughter of Mexican immigrants, was the highest-ranking Hispanic in a campaign that has come to rely on Hispanic voters to win crucial states such as California and Arizona. Whether her departure will cost Clinton among this vital constituency is a critical question.

Doyle said in a departing note that she intends to remain on as a senior adviser, and one official said she plans to travel occasionally with the candidate. Her brother Danny Solis, a Chicago alderman who volunteered for Clinton, said in a recent telephone interview that his sister's life in the campaign has been "a struggle." "She spends a lot of time as a referee," he said. "And she takes a lot of the punches."

The campaign long has had a very tight inner circle of Doyle, chief strategist Mark Penn, communications director Howard Wolfson, media adviser Mandy Grunwald and policy director Neera Tanden. Harold Ickes, former White House deputy chief of staff, has played an increasingly important role.

Since New Hampshire, others have been brought in to help. That group includes Doug Sosnik, former White House political director; Steve Richetti, who served as congressional liaison in the Clinton White House; and Linda Moore Forbes, who also served in the Clinton White House and who is helping nail down endorsements from superdelegates to the national convention.

Doug Hattaway, a veteran of the Gore campaign, has joined Clinton's communications operation. Roy Spence, a longtime friend of both the senator and the former president, has been offering advice on messaging and will play a lead role in overseeing the Texas campaign.

But for all the efforts to expand the operation, Democratic strategists said the Clinton campaign remains opaque, even to those on the outside willing to be helpful. "They have more walls around them than you've seen in many castles," said one prominent Democrat.

Advisers to the candidates and to Edwards were reluctant to talk about the intense courtship underway. Edwards had harsh words for Clinton during many debates but is said to be torn about a possible endorsement. The meeting between Edwards and Clinton was described as substantive and friendly.

Clinton's loss in Maine was not a total surprise to her team, though she had been leading in some polls. The candidate tried to look past her weekend defeats in Louisiana, Nebraska and Washington state, never mentioning them in her speech at a Democratic Party event in Richmond on Saturday night, nor during her Virginia stop yesterday. Her strategists have said they are pessimistic about how she will do in the Virginia, Maryland and District of Columbia contests.

Staff writer Peter Slevin contributed to this report.