LAT: Clinton has a truth-teller in new campaign manager
Maggie Williams, who was an aide to Hillary Rodham Clinton when she was first lady, has a reputation as someone who can tell the senator what she doesn't want to hear.
By Maura Reynolds, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
February 16, 2008
....More than a decade later, Hillary Rodham Clinton is trying to win the Oval Office for herself, and this week she turned to her former chief of staff (Maggie Williams) to reinvigorate her campaign. The first step, Clinton supporters say, is for the new campaign manager to truthfully assess the campaign's weaknesses. And those who have worked with Williams say no one on the New York senator's campaign staff is better suited to that role....
Williams did not start out working full time on the campaign, but after Clinton lost the Iowa caucuses, she started making calls to Clinton supporters outside the campaign to assess the trouble. Clinton won in New Hampshire but then lost traction in subsequent weeks, and pressure grew for a shake-up. Williams' task now is to try to ensure that Clinton wins decisively in the high-stakes March 4 primaries in Ohio and Texas, each of which has well over 100 delegates at stake. "I don't think she intended or expected to be part of the campaign," said David Gergen, who worked with Williams when he served as a political advisor under President Clinton. "It's clearly a sign of distress that they reached out and brought her in."
Clinton has known Williams since the early 1980s, when Clinton was on the board of the Children's Defense Fund and Williams was the advocacy group's communications director. Since then, the two have developed an intense personal loyalty, but not a blind one -- Williams is known as someone who is able to tell Clinton what she doesn't want to hear. "She is a consigliere to Hillary and always has been," said Lisa Caputo, who was press secretary to Clinton as first lady and who is informally advising the Clinton campaign. Caputo said Clinton, 60, and Williams, 53, treat each other more as peers. By contrast, Clinton's former campaign manager, Patti Solis Doyle, while equally trusted, is 42 and had related to her boss more as an employee than as an equal. "Maggie's relationship goes back 25-plus years. Patti's goes back 15," Caputo said, adding, "Maggie has dealt longer on a national stage."...
At the White House, Williams was the highest-ranking African American, and she became an integral part of the Clinton inner circle. The mere fact that she attended Panetta's high-level meetings was unprecedented. Hillary Clinton was the first presidential spouse to have an office in the West Wing, and she installed Williams next door with a dual title as "assistant to the president." But -- by design -- Williams was little-known outside the White House. That frustrates friends who believe she has deserved more credit and recognition....Friends say her self-deprecating manner allows her to focus those around her on the task at hand and the principles at stake. She is passionate and persistent and -- rare for someone in politics -- not egocentric. And that's one reason she inspires others....
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In 2005, she started a management consulting company with Patrick Griffin, an old friend from her White House days. She has been a fellow at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government and currently serves on the board of its Institute of Politics. "Her strong point is helping people with internal organizational problems, often operating in political environments," said Griffin, who served as director of legislative affairs in the Clinton administration....
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-williams16feb16,0,4896066,full.story 
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