McCain orders shake-up of his campaign

By Adam Nagourney

updated 12:00 a.m. ET July 3, 2008

WASHINGTON - 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 elevation 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 unless he revamped his campaign operation, two officials close to the campaign said.

The move of Mr. Schmidt is the latest sign of increasing influence of veterans of Mr. Rove’s shop in the McCain operation. Nicolle Wallace, 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 presidential advance 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 win the presidency.

Mr. McCain’s advisers said that Mr. Davis would continue to hold the position of campaign manager, but that Mr. Schmidt had taken over every major operation where Mr. McCain has shown signs of struggling: communications, scheduling and basic political strategy. Mr. McCain’s aides said that Mr. Davis would now focus more on longer-term campaign efforts, including helping with the selection of a running mate and planning for the Republican National Convention , which is now just two months away.

Mr. Schmidt and Mr. Davis declined a request for comment. The McCain campaign played down the significance of this latest personnel shift.

“Voters don’t care about the organizational chart of our campaign,” said Jill Hazelbaker, the campaign spokesman, adding: “Today’s move is simply an expression of our understanding of the need to scale up for a general election campaign against Barack Obama .”

Republican circles have been awash with rumors for weeks now that Mr. McCain would seek to bring Mike Murphy, a longtime friend and adviser who helped direct his 2000 campaign for the White House, back into the fold. Mr. McCain’s advisers, noting the deep tensions between Mr. Murphy and many of the people in Mr. McCain’s inner circle — including Mr. Davis and Mr. Schmidt — said such a development was highly unlikely.

Similarly, Mr. McCain’s aides said it was unlikely that John Weaver, another longtime McCain friend who left in the midst of the last shake-up, would return. “Not enough bayonets to make me do this,” Mr. Weaver said in an e-mail response to a question.

The last shake-up occurred at the beginning of last July as Mr. McCain’s campaign was bleeding money, riven by infighting, and the candidate was trailing in polls in Iowa and New Hampshire. For all the negative commentary that shake-up drew to Mr. McCain, it had its desired result, a reminder that campaign upheavals are not necessarily a bad thing.

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In an early insight into the impact of Mr. Schmidt’s new role, the campaign is planning what will amount to a restarting of Mr. McCain’s candidacy after Independence Day, in which he will tour the country talking about a jobs program and visiting battleground states intended to illustrate the economic woes he will be talking about: Colorado, Wisconsin and Michigan.

By contrast, in appearances that drew widespread derision by Republicans — and whoops of delight from Democrats — Mr. McCain delivered a speech in which he came out in favor of off-shore drilling first before an audience of oil executives in Houston, and repeated it in a speech in Santa Barbara, Calif., a locale long identified with opposition to off-shore drilling.

In abandoning Mr. Davis’s idea to have the campaign largely run by 11 regional campaign managers, Mr. Schmidt told associates that he feared that system was unworkable and would lead to gridlock in the campaign. He is also about to hire a political director, a post that had gone unfilled under Mr. Davis.

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