For Obama, a Thin Line

Awhile ago I talked about what Barack Obama plans to do for women, and now it looks like he's getting a little more aggressive in terms of securing their support:

Sen. Barack Obama hit back at Sen. John McCain's recent attempts to court women voters who flocked to Sen. Hillary Clinton's failed presidential bid in droves.

"On almost every single issue that's important to women, he's been on the wrong side," the presumptive Democratic nominee told ABC News in an interview in Flint, Mich. Monday.

"You know, he is in favor of judges who would overturn Roe v. Wade. He has opposed equal pay. He has opposed the CHIP [Children's Health Insurance] program, that would make children insured," Obama said.

While this looks like a good sign for Camp Obama, there are always things that will remind them that winning old Hillary Clinton supporters will be a continuous process. Case in point:

The nomination fight is over, but the warring between the Obama and Clinton campaigns lives on.

The Obama team announced today that it had picked former Clinton campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle to serve on its general election staff. Fair enough: Solis Doyle is a native Chicagoan with deep ties to many senior Obama aides.

But Solis Doyle -- who after her firing midway through the primaries is no longer on speaking terms with much of the Clinton inner circle, including the senator herself -- has been tapped to serve as chief of staff to the future vice presidential running mate. Not exactly a signal that Obama is considering Hillary Clinton for the job.

At least that's how Clinton loyalists see it. "It's a slap in the face," Susie Tompkins Buell, a prominent Clinton backer, said in an interview. "Why would they put somebody that was so clearly ineffective in such a position? It's a message. We get it." She said it was a "calculated decision" by the Obama team to "send a message that she [Clinton] is not being considered for the ticket."

Walking this line will not be easy.