Another major staff shake-up in the McCain campaign
The perception in Republican circles is that John McCain’s campaign has been slow to take advantage of various opportunities, lacks focus, and has generally been unimpressive as the general-election phase of the campaign has gotten underway over the last month.
Given the intra-party grumbling, it probably shouldn’t come as too big a surprise that McCain has made another staffing change at the top, the second shake-up in a year.
Steve Schmidt is taking over the day-to-day operation of John McCain’s campaign, according to multiple campaign sources.
At a staff meeting in the campaign’s Arlington, Va., headquarters this morning, campaign manager Rick Davis made the announcement about Schmidt’s new role.
Schmidt, a bald and barrel-chested operative known for his aggressive brand of political combat, responded by exhorting campaign aides with a speech that one staffer likened to a locker room pep talk out of the football movie “Rudy.”
After the meeting, on a regularly scheduled conference call with McCain’s 11 regional campaign managers, senior staff briefed the field aides about the move, explaining Davis would focus more on long-range tasks while Schmidt was taking an enhanced daily role, said an individual on the call.
According to reports, Schmidt will now handle the responsibilities of a campaign manager — coordinating the campaign’s message, and overseeing scheduling, policy matters, coalitions, and campaign surrogates. Lobbyist Rick Davis, who had these responsibilities up until today, will reportedly tackle “big-picture issues such as general strategy,” which I thought was Charlie Black’s job.
Apparently, there’s some confusion about the chain of command, which in and of itself, is symptomatic of a campaign that’s not firing on all cylinders.
Now, accounts diverge on the exact nature of the new chain of command. One top McCain source said that Schmidt “assumed full operational control of the campaign today” and described Davis as “a general manager.”
But Charlie Black, another top adviser, said Davis was still in charge.
“Steve is going to function under Rick as a [chief operating officer],” Black said. “Rick still has authority over all things. Steve works for Rick.”
But Black made sure to not diminish Schmidt’s elevated role in the campaign.
“He’ll be the maestro who conducts the symphony,” Black said of Schmidt’s position in driving McCain’s message.
It’s probably safe to say that the McCain campaign wants everyone to think this was a minor, subtle staffing change, and that there was no major shift at the top of the campaign structure. But given what we know, that appears to be a pretty weak spin — when you take away the responsibilities of the campaign manager, give the job to someone else, and let the guy who was the campaign manager tackle “big-picture issues,” the practical result is that McCain just fired his campaign manager and picked a new one. That’s what happens when the new guy takes “full operational control” of the campaign.
It’s not especially unusual for presidential campaigns to switch managers in order to get on track, but it is odd for a leading-party nominee to have three different campaign managers in the course of one year, with the third being named just four months before Election Day.
In this sense, today’s announcement will either quiet talk about McCain campaign disarray, or reinforce it.
Apparently, there’s some confusion about the chain of command, which in and of itself, is symptomatic of a campaign that’s not firing on all cylinders.
How dare you make an issue of John McCain’s age!
/conservative hissy-fit
Oh, and “chain of command”?
How dare you insult John McCain’s military service?!
/media hyperventilating
No, according to the MSM. People get hired and fired all the time. Nothing to see here. John McCain’s campaign is doing great, like the Real Estate turds said past Dec 2006. No worries at all. All is well. Everyone is doing fine. BTW, here’s another Cindy Cookie recipe and some more BBQ sauce.
Clearly, this demonstrates the McCain’s brilliance as a strategist.
If McCain’s own people don’t know what’s going on and who’s in charge, imagine how confused the Islamo-fascists are going to be when Diebold declares McCain won the election.
Definitely ready from Day One.
Note to McCain: Putting Dick Cheney’s CHIEF SKINHEAD in charge of your campaign is not a good way to distance yourself from Bushylvanianism….
The fact is Schmidt came to Arlington a while back and the McCain campaign has had a more coherent message and been doing far better with their blocking and tackling. The problem is they don’t have a policy message going forward; and people want policy. This isn’t a personality election: it’s about change. Hillary Clinton nearly won because of her wonkishness; the problem is she was on the wrong side of Iraq. The McCain camp will hope that the new structure will allow them to find a new message. That’s what’s happened last time he’s fired his managers.
John McCain is polling in a dead heat with Obama. If this is how close he can come in the polls with a badly run campaig then Obama, dripping as he is with money, a phenomenal campaign machine and smug surrogates, has some major problems……Not that I care, rather, I am stoked, because when this thing really gets going, Old Blue eyes will leave the Pretender in the dust
Gloating is so unattractive, especially when it’s misplaced. Obama had to literally introduce himself to the American public while McCain has been around for decades. I’m afraid you all will be the ones eating the dust vs. kicking it up.
McCain is indeed a vacillating, uninformed tool. He’s the chosen candidate of the same cabal for whom Bush was the chosen candidate and for the same reasons. He’ll need at least as much “help” as Bush did and somewhere there’s already a list of those who will be called upon to “help” him. The media’s great care in immunizing him from any attack whatsoever is not an accident.
I’m surprised he didn’t put Mark Penn in the top position…
susannah jones said:
… Old Blue eyes will leave the Pretender in the dust
Five McCain points for Susannah. Three more comments and she’ll earn an economy-size bottle of Fibrecon or a box of adult diapers with McCain’s (latest) campaign slogan on them!
… Old Blue eyes will leave the Pretender in the dust
That’s an apt metaphor, seeing how Sinatra is also dead and buried.
I think the green backdrop could have been blue and that speech would have been almost as pathetic. McCain had weeks to work out his lines, and yet he looked like a tired old man who got dragged out of a bingo parlor and shoved onto the stage, and the crowd was equally anemic.
Why was the crowd anemic? Because you suck.
Bring it on, McCain. See if your new helpers can figure out how to get your buddy the Worst President Ever from dragging you down. Even with all your corporate media cheerleaders pulling for you, Bush is an anchor around your neck.
Have a good drown.
McCain has been around for decades.
Yeah, and we’ve got the video, which comes in handy.
Now that I’ve tried waterboarding, I’m more qualified than Obama to be President.
Can you imagine what it would be like to work in the McCain campaign. “Full speed ahead, no go right, no left, wait a minute, go right again….”
I don’t think that using the words “old” and “dust” in a post supporting McCain is very productive.
Now if only Obama would take note. Seems he needs some different voices to advise him as his current advisers seemed too focused on electorate numbers than policy issues and standing their ground. “If he came around to our way of thinking on FISA how much longer will it be before he comes around to our way of thinking about Iraq?”-Brownback
We reject Clark’s comments on McCain…which I assume means they agree that McCain’s military service indeed makes him more qualified to be president than Obama.
Just this morning McCain said “I said I was stronger on National security issues BECAUSE I spent so much time in the military…which makes me better qualified than my opponent”
McCain said” the biggest threat to our economy is Islamo- terrorism.” and is left unchallenged on this remark by the deaf dumb and blind boys advising Obama.
Someone wisely said,” the way a person runs their campaign is a good indicator on how they will run the government office.” Obama’s campaign has been almost historically perfect. His people are professional and they get along. They are loyal. Clinton had problems with in house conflicts and now McCain. Tells me alot about how they would lead!
Dennis – You didn’t notice that Susannah also included “dead”?
Old..dead…dust
Yep, that’s the near future for the Republicans.
BuzzMon, @20,
Yeah, but she forgot “ashes”…
I don’t mean to go off topic but I just saw that Columbian hostages were just rescued from FARC. Bush has apparently just spoken to the Columbian President and McCain has made a recent trip to Columbia before the rescue. US aircraft have been said to been involved in transporting the hostages, which includes three American contractors. I am curious to the point of black helicopter paranoia, but I’ll say it.
Haven’t we seen this before in the 80’s?
A presidential candidate.
A hostage crisis.
A miraculous rescue. Which was followed by revelations of apparent shady dealings to secure a rescue.
Perhaps McCain is the “new” Reagan.
The whole ‘prolonging of the Democratic nominee’ strategy seems to have backfired for the Republicans. There was so much media coverage of Hillary and Obama day in and day out during this process, that McCain basically got shoved out of the news, out of mainstream media. Even the pundits gave more credence to Bill and his escapades than McCain. No one reported on McCain, no one cared about McCain. This lack of critical exposure and airtime allowed voters to make up their minds early for the Democratic nominee, Obama. This second campaign shakeup in the McCain camp is a direct result of this error, thus its likely too late at this point for McCain to make any further inroads with voters, especially with the disadvantage in funds as compared to Obama. This strategic mistake will indeed cost the Republicans the presidency, and its a good lesson to learn to never try and ‘subvert the process’ lest you shoot yourself in the foot. Blame it on Rush, its all his fault.
The problem is not the campaign or the staff or the message. The problem is the candidate. I am forty year Republican and would not vote for McCain under any circumstances. If I wanted a pro-amnesty, pro-FISA, liberal without a shred of understanding about the economy, would vote for a Democrat. As it is, people like me will either be staying home or voting third party.
“The problem is the candidate.”
This is probably true bu if a good campaign staff couldn’t overcome that issue, the last 8 years would have been completely different.
i think the phrase of “mcsame” says it all…
he is walking into the steps of his predecessor and that predecessor
tried very successfully to destroy “mcsame” the last time he ran for president.
i like some of the things he stands for because they are opposite of the bush/cheney dictatorship…he is a damn good citizen but it’s just all the rest of the stuff he endorses that is flagrantly bad for our great country…
OBAMA ’08
Pat H said: “If I wanted a pro-amnesty, pro-FISA, liberal without a shred of understanding about the economy, [I] would vote for a Democrat.”
Actually, being Pro-FISA means you want a court to issue a warrant before the Feds can spy on you.
It’s the Compromise that is allowing corporate criminals to go free.