Patti Solis Doyle joins Obama campaign

From the NY Times, a bit of odd news:

The Obama campaign is about to make its first big hire out of the campaign of Hillary Rodham Clinton. Patti Solis Doyle, who was Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign manager until she was ousted in a staff shake up in February, will join Mr. Obama’s campaign as the chief of staff to the vice presidential candidate –
whoever he (or she) will be, campaign officials said.

Kos expresses what has many people has scratching their heads:

This is beyond bizarre. It would certainly be weird to see Doyle as chief of staff of the person who fired her quite publicly just a short while ago. But Doyle and Clinton go way back, so it's plausible.

But it's even weirder for the Obama campaign to hire a chief of staff for a veep candidate who has yet to be chosen and who may have his or her own staff he or she might feel more comfortable working with. This sort of position is too important to impose on the veep nominee without consideration over whether they can work well
together.

So all in all, weird.

Right. I can't figure out an angle on this one, other than hiring a prominent Hispanic woman, and a woman who isvery prominently identified with Hillary.

Ah, I may have figured it out. A post in the comments on DailyKos.com reminded me that Doyle and David Axelrod, one of Obama's key people, are old friends from Chicago. Now I get it. So putting her in this job is a great way of bringing her into the campaign, at least for now. And Obama probably won't announce a nomination for VP for a while, so Doyle can stay there until that nominee is chosen. So she's part of the campaign, but not in an essential position. Presumably she will be working closely with Caroline Kennedy. Then, depending on who the VP nominee is, they can either keep her or move her to somewhere else in the campaign.

Makes sense now. Actually quite a brilliant move on the part of the Obama campaign - give her a job, make some peace with Hillary and her supporters, hire a prominent Hispanic woman, but also give her a position that she may not even want in two months. So she'll be able to learn the ropes and all the new faces, and if she does fit, she has time to figure out where. If the VP likes her, she's already there. If not, no one will notice if she finds another job or even leaves the campaign. Perfect solution. Way to go, Obama campaign.