McCain Gets Help From Rove And Other Top Bush Political Staffers

In another sign of how he is solidifying his links to the GOP establishment, presumptive Republican presidential nominee Senator John McCain is getting help from veteran Republican operatives such as former White House political guru Karl Rove.

Hillary Clinton and/or Barack Obama beware. The Politico reports:

John McCain is getting much more than President Bush’s endorsement and fundraising help for his campaign. He’s getting Bush’s staff.

It’s no secret that Steve Schmidt, Bush’s attack dog in the 2004 election, and Mark McKinnon, the president’s media strategist, are performing similar functions for McCain now.

….Ken Mehlman, who ran Bush’s 2004 campaign, is now serving as an unpaid, outside adviser to the Arizona Republican. Karl Rove, the president’s top political hand since his Texas days, recently gave money to McCain and soon after had a private conversation with the senator. A top McCain adviser said both Mehlman and Rove are now informally advising the campaign. Rove refused to detail his conversation with McCain.

The list could grow longer. Dan Bartlett, formerly a top aide in the Bush White House, and Sara Taylor, the erstwhile Bush political adviser, said they are eager to provide any assistance and advice possible to McCain.

It would have been simple to predict that McCain would get some top GOP operative support, but this development should be troubling to Democrats:

(1) McCain’s campaign is going to get advice from the very top Bush operatives who ran aggressive — and successful — campaigns against Democrats, thwarting them in the end using every conceivable technique. There’s no reason to think the tone of past Presidential campaigns will change.

(2) If the Democrats are smart (which is sometimes is a big “if”) they now can point to the familiar faces on the Bush campaign as proof that a McCain administration could in many ways be a third Bush administration. In reality, that’s likely to prove false. But they can make the argument.

(3) Hillary Clinton can continue to promote the argument that the Democrats need someone tough as nails to take on the McCain team with its array of back up Bush operative advisers.

(4) This may put more pressure on Barack Obama to show he can hit back harder — in essence forcing him more and more to shed the aura of someone who is running and eschewing the politics of search-and-destroy..particularly if McCain starts scoring some points against Democrats while the Obama and Clinton campaigns punch each other.