Report: 'Clinton Lied to About Money'

On his blog today Andrew Sullivan points out that Mark Silva of the The Swamp dropped a few interesting details about the departure of Hillary Clinton's campaign manager, Patti Solis Doyle, into his coverage of Barack Obama's win in yesterday's Maine caucus.

Silva's source indicated that Solis Doyle was on borrowed time since Iowa and had been spared being replaced earlier because of Senator Clinton's victory in New Hampshire.

Silva writes:

[E]ven more problematic was the campaign's money crunch. Over the last seven years, Clinton had raised $175 million for her reelection and her presidential campaign. But Solis Doyle didn't tell Clinton that there was next to no cash on hand until after the New Hampshire primary.

"We were lying about money," a source said. "The cash on hand was nothing."

In turn, Clinton didn't tell Solis Doyle that she was lending her own money to keep the campaign afloat. Solis Doyle found out third-hand. And when she asked Clinton about it, the senator told her she couldn't understand how the campaign had gotten to such a point.

Sullivan, a Clinton critic, points to a similar story by fellow Atlantic blogger Marc Ambinder. Sullivan believes that Senator Clinton suffers from a similar managerial flaw that has beleaguered the Bush administration. "The reason underlings lie about things," Sullivan wrote, "is because they're scared and don't want to upset the boss. Think Bush and Iraq. Or Bush and everything. You want another executive like that in the White House? The kind who does not want to hear bad news?"

David Corn believes the fault for campaign difficulties always lies with the candidate. He writes:

Hillary Clinton chose Solis, made the decision to compete in Iowa (which some of her aides wanted to skip), and embraced Penn, a corporate consultant whose company aids and abets union-busting businesses, as her strategy guru. She got what she paid for. (Penn made over $4 million last year working for the Clinton campaign.) And now she's left with the need to stop Obama in two big states. Sure she could lose each--Remember the Alamo!--and still remain in the delegate hunt. But the race would be tougher for her; she would be left with only one more fallback position: Pennsylvania on April 22.

The Daily News has a feature on Maggie Williams.