 |
|
WP: All Bush's men and women steering the McCain/Palin campaign:
... Others, including some sympathetic Republicans, have begun to quietly question whether McCain and Palin are well served by strategists so firmly anchored in the Bush establishment when the candidates are presenting themselves as a "team of mavericks" and agents of change. One Republican with long-standing ties to the Bush administration described the situation as a paradox in which Palin is especially vulnerable.
"If the McCain campaign is trying to prop up Palin as its change agent, and its inoculation against the 'third Bush term' rap, then why on earth is she surrounded by a cast of Bush advisers?" said the Republican loyalist, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "Since she's been selected, every single one of the senior aides that she's brought on board had prominent roles in Bush's White House or on his campaigns, or both."
While Schmidt has imposed a degree of discipline on the campaign that did not exist during McCain's dark hours in the primary season -- and Palin seems to have taken to that structure -- other strategists with reputations for independent thinking who once surrounded McCain have been sidelined. John Weaver, who used to serve as McCain's top political adviser, is among them. He said McCain's reliance on Bush vets is logical.
"If you're going to fill a campaign out with experienced people, the last two general elections were won by someone named Bush," Weaver said. "Where else would they have come from?"
The ranks of the McCain-Palin team are now full of those veterans. Nicolle Wallace, Mark Wallace's wife, was communications director at the White House and is now offering senior-level communications expertise to both McCain and Palin (and joined Palin on her Alaska trip). Douglas Holtz-Eakin, who served as chief economist for Bush's Council of Economic Advisers, is now McCain's domestic policy adviser (and accompanied Palin to Alaska as well). Bush confidant Mark McKinnon stopped formally advising McCain once Obama became the Democratic nominee -- but he, too, is continuing to advise the group and crafted Cindy McCain's convention speech. A former Bush speechwriter, Matthew Scully, wrote Palin's convention speech.