Steve Schmidt takes over the McCain campaign
A new direction?
By Mark Kilmer Posted in 2008 | campaign | McCain | Steve Schmidt — Comments (19) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Steve Schmidt has assumed "full operational control" of the McCain campaign, the Washington Post tells us, with McCain reducing the role of current campaign manager Rick Davis, who will now concentrate on finding a veep. (This lays to rest the "Romney is leading" and "Palin is leading" and "Jindal is out" garbage from the media. How can one have a leader for a position if the process has not yet begun?)
Schmidt will take over just about everything else, according to two senior sources in the campaign. The political, coalitions, volunteer and communications departments will report to him, as will the regional campaign managers.
Several McCain advisers said they believed Schmidt intends to scrap Davis' plan to give the regional managers wide lattitude to run the operations in their states. Instead, the sources said they expect Schmidt to hire a political director and a field director -- two positions that are traditional elements of a presidential campaign.
What changes? Dunno. After his June 3rd speech, my thought was that McCain could us the late, great Mike Deaver. He's not available.
We'll see what magic the supposedly virtually unfettered Schmidt can work. What the almost comical tone of the Obama campaign so far, he should have plenty with which to work.
(And there is more from Jonathan Martin at Politico.com.)
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Steve Schmidt takes over the McCain campaign 19 Comments (0 topical, 19 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
Here comes:
Focused messages
Targeted offense
Fire in the belly
One sheet of music for pundits
Obama's gonna spin this one... liberals already are.. see dailykos.com
But it will make them think, no matter how much they try to play this as a bad thing for John.
Nope.. This is a very good thing for America.
the messages, and the rapid responses. It was what the media portrayed of the candidates: the Obama campaign was fresh, vibrant, and alive, while the McCain campaign resembled a sluggish, old man. The media-driven stereotypes of the candidates seemed reinforced by the campaigns.
We'll see what we now have. I hope they get a top image guy, which was why I mentioned Deaver.
They could also use a Joe Gaylord, the op who did the Contract With America for Newt back in '94.
agreed on the gaylord newt thing
You're familiar with Mr. Gaylord. I know him mostly through hearsay and legend, rather than local observation.
McCain's campaign organization has been and continues to be a mess. His winning the nomination only validates the sense that the other campaigns - Giulianni, Thompson and Romney apparently were worse. Whatever good news this may constitute, it doesn't say alot about McCain's management skills, since this will be his second upheaval. With energy, taxes, health care and the war, in that order, Obama shouldn't be able to win this. Unfortunately for the GOP, McCain will lose it.
Why?
Putting his campaign into sharper focus cannot be your reason, so why do you think John McCain will lose this election?
He's been running for two years, if not more. Do you honestly think that having to appoint a new campaign manager in July is giving your campaign more focus? Isn't this the same kind of stuff that sunk Clinton? If this gives you a warm and fuzzy feeling about the McCain campaign, go for it. From my view, whether it's getting more focused, or raising campaign funds, it's not a sign he's doing all that well, and good, bad, or indifferent, until he shows some juice, Obama is going to have the edge.
needs a message, a sound-byte slogan, but you'd already written this change of as nothing, Obama wins. I asked you why.
I do not know what the change to Schmidt will do for the campaign, but after the convention, McCain's campaign as to be on a message, clear, concise, focused. Schmidt could help in this regard, and I hope he does.
Look, Obama is little more than a series of flaws waiting to be exploited; McCain's peeps have to do it.
Remember that Obambi and his people took down the most feared machine in American electoral politics: the Clintons.
And they did it with a studied relentlessness.
Obama is not an empty suit and he's not a series of flaws. He is a very formidable guy.
Expecting the Dems to implode in a year when voters are exhausted with Republicans is yet another example of whistling past the graveyard.
"History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it"-Winston Churchill
Good grief, Section9, the Clinton's took themselves down. Your
"empty suit" simply gave Democrats a reason to accomplish what
they wanted to from the beginning. They had no love for
the Clintons and wanted to get rid of them. Obama has been
packaged to accomplish that goal. Now they need to convince
the voters he can handle it. Match....Set.. but Goal????
We'll see how well they protect the "Messiah" image.
All I know about Steve Schmidt is that he managed Schwarzenegger's 2004 reelection campaign, and this doesn't exactly fill me with a warm fuzzy feeling (disclaimer: I voted against (for: McClintock)/didn't vote for Schwarzenegger in 2003 & 2004, respectively).
Is this really the guy who will turn things around? Can someone show me why I should believe this?
I need more info...
he fired Charles Black after he (RR) lost the Iowa Caucus to GHWB in 1980.
McCain has a group of loyalists around who are OK for the primary but need to go so he can ramp up for the general election.
This is great news. Steve schmidt is to the mcCain campaign what Gen Petraeus is to the iraq war.
It's a whole other level of competition.
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777
it is insane to have 11 different regional managers coming up with their own non-existent messages which would be impossible to break through the media silence on Obama's true self.
we need to start driving the narrative EVERY DAY- what are the five things he will do, what is the truth about Obama, and how will Obama wreck our country. Focus on that!!
"Small town folks get bitter after which they cling to guns or religion, or antipathy to people who aren't like them, or anti-immigrant sentiment"- Barack Carter Obama
I don't know anything about Mr. Schmidt either, but count me in as someone who hopes and prays that he can, somehow, focus the message and start going after Obama the way he deserves to be gone after.
Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to eat for lunch; liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.
director of Bush/Cheney 2004. I believe he worked for cheney for a while after the election. He ran Ahnuld's re-election campaign. He's known to be focused, disciplined, very hardworking.
Davis ran a good campaign after McCain cratered last year. But he was not up to the demands of the general campaign. There were many fsilures, the worst being orgsnization -- the lack of a national political director is a terrible mistake, as is the regional directors thing -- now gone, thankfully. The message was confused and uncoordinated as a result. The worst (my opinion) was scheduling and staging events, apparently events were scheduled to take place wherever McCain happened to be for funraising - hence the bad speech badly delivered before the listless audience and the green background, the speech in energy reform delivered to the oil execs, the speech on offshore drilling delivered in Santa barbara, etc.
OK. All this is bad, and will be fixed. The good news is that even with all the failures of the campaign so far, McCain remains viable. In fact, he's a very good candidate, and Obma is a very bad one. Just this week, we had the Wes Clark debacle, completely screwing up the Dems ill-conceived attempt to paint McCain as a chickenhawk (sure, he served...but not really!), two very bad speeches delivered by Obama on faith and patriotism, numberless flip-flops by Obama, the news that Michelle is poison (we knew this but it's apparently news to the AP that more people dislike her than like her. AP:But...she's feisty! You love feisty!. No...we dont) and Cindy McCain is twice as popular, though not well known. and if Obama is flailing now (and he is) how will it be when he has to execute the mother of all flip-flops on Iraq.
In short, this is a welcome development. At t his point I guess it's good that mcCain is still competitive. But given Obama's weakenesses, which are many, McCain should be opening up a narrow lead (mid single digits) on Obama about now, and he isn't. Neither has moved since Obama got his microbounce after June 3. And that is bad for us.
And also -- no more trips overseas with Graham and Lieberman!
The campaign has seemed sluggish and aimless at times. Very unlike McCain's message driven primary campaign which was very focused.
I wonder how Rick Davis' influence will affect the VP choice.