WASHINGTON — Sen. Hillary Clinton replaced her campaign manager Sunday, in a move that follows Clinton's resounding losses to Sen. Barack Obama in three Democratic presidential contests Saturday and an apparent loss in Maine on Sunday.
In a written statement, Patti Solis Doyle said she was stepping down as Clinton's campaign manager to become a senior adviser who will travel with the New York senator on occasion. Maggie Williams, a longtime friend who was Clinton's former chief of staff when she was first lady, takes over as campaign manager starting this week.
"Patti Solis Doyle has done an extraordinary job in getting us to this point - within reach of the nomination - and I am enormously grateful for her friendship and her outstanding work," Clinton said in a written statement.
Clinton said she is confident that Williams, who joined the campaign after Clinton's victory in New Hampshire in January, "will lead our campaign with great skill towards the nomination."
Hours after the switch was announced, Clinton lost the Maine Democratic caucus to Obama in another staggering defeat. Television networks and the Associated Press declared Obama the winner by a significant margin with 70 per cent of the vote counted.
Clinton campaign officials didn't say whether Sunday's shift was connected to Clinton's resounding double-digit defeats to Obama in Saturday's Louisiana primary and Nebraska and Washington caucuses.
Saturday and Sunday's losses came after a week in which Clinton acknowledged that she quietly loaned her campaign - which had raised more than $100 million in 2007 - $5 million last month in order to keep pace with Obama's aggressive television advertising blitz in key states.
While some aides described the loan as a solution to a temporary cash flow problem, some Clinton supporters saw it as a sign of a campaign in distress. Obama's campaign raised $32 million in January while Clinton's raised $13 million. Clinton officials say they've raised another $10 million from 100,000 donors since the Feb. 6 Super Tuesday contests.