McCain Shakes Up Campaign Staff: Greater Karl Rove Influence
July 3rd, 2008
By JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief
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The big political news yesterday was that for the second time presumptive Republican Presidential nominee Sen. John McCain has revamped his campaign staff — this time after he was warned that he was in danger of losing the election to Democratic Senator Barack Obama. The upshot: former White House political maven Karl Rove’s influence on the McCain campaign will be greater than ever.
Senator John McCain’s presidential campaign has gone through its second shake-up in a year. Responding to Republican concerns that his candidacy was faltering, Mr. McCain put a veteran of President Bush’s 2004 campaign in charge of day-to-day operations and stepped away from a plan to have the campaign run by 11 regional managers, Mr. McCain’s aides said Wednesday.
The installation of Steve Schmidt, who worked closely with Karl Rove, at Mr. McCain’s headquarters represented a sharp diminishment of the responsibilities of Rick Davis, who has been Mr. McCain’s campaign manager since the last shake-up nearly a year ago.
The shift was approved by Mr. McCain after several of his aides, including Mr. Schmidt, went to him about 10 days ago and warned him that he was in danger of losing the presidential election to Senator Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee, unless he revamped his campaign operation, two officials close to the campaign said.
The significance of the Rovian influence — which will likely become evident rather quickly in terms of a focused message, the use of hot-button issues, and the way Obama will now be characterized by McCain and surrogates — is the big story here. In reality, the tip of this political iceburg surfaced a few months ago when it was reported that Mr. Rove was an “informal advisor” to McCain. Now people who worked under him are also embedded in highly powerful positions in the McCain campaign. On the other hand, Schmidt isn’t a Rove controlled robot, and will be making his own decisions.
Mr. Schmidt’s elevation is the latest sign of increasing influence of veterans of Mr. Rove’s shop in the McCain operation. Nicolle Wallace, who was communications director for Mr. Bush in the 2004 campaign (and in his White House) has joined the campaign as a senior adviser, and will travel with Mr. McCain every other week. Greg Jenkins, another veteran of Mr. Rove’s operation who is a former Fox News producer and director of the presidential advance team in the Bush White House, was hired by Mr. Schmidt last week after a series of what Mr. McCain’s advisers acknowledged were poorly executed campaign events.
Mr. Rove, who was Mr. Bush’s senior political adviser until he left the White House last year, was said by Mr. McCain’s advisers to have offered advice in recent days to Mr. Schmidt and others on how to get Mr. McCain’s campaign on track, but has stayed mostly on the periphery. Mr. Rove is aware, his associates said, that his own legacy could be helped should Mr. McCain succeed in winning the presidency.
Buckle your seat belts because the campaign will be even more of a wild ride and bare-knuckled brawl than many predicted — and it was widely predicted that it could be brutal. At a time when Obama is under increasing fire from progressives for moving to the center and sounding like a traditional Democratic pandering pol, the McCain campaign is now morphing into yet another Karl Rove Presidential campaign operation, only this time it’s “unofficial” since Rove doesn’t have an official title or paycheck. But, the Times report confirms, it’s quite real — and those who were counting the days when America would close the chapter on Karl Rove and his style of national politics will have to count for quite a while.
The Biggest Problem McCain Now Faces: He is already under attack by critics and some in the press who say in many ways his stances indicate a continuation of the Bush administration. Democrats are painting a potential McCain presidency as Bush III. Now this news comes out — suggesting more than ever that the big guns in his campaign are Bush/Rove proteges. Taken together, this will make it much easier for Democrats to argue that a McCain administration will be a continuation of the same group of people who’ve run the executive branch for some 8 years. If the Democrats make this argument bluntly it could be damaging — particularly if predictions that the dollar will weaken even more and gas prices will continue to zoom come true.
ANOTHER VIEW comes from Marc Ambinder who sees it differently than I do. His take on it (also) makes sense..
This entry was posted on Thursday, July 3rd, 2008 at 12:20 am and is filed under Barack Obama, John McCain, Newsweek Blogitics, Republicans, Karl Rove, 2008 Elections, Democrats, Politics. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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