McCain Orders Shake-Up Of His Campaign

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, the moderate-conservative Republican put a veteran of President George W. 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.

The installation of Steve Schmidt, who worked closely with Karl Rove, at Sen. McCain’s headquarters represented a sharp diminishment of the responsibilities of Rick Davis, who has been Sen. McCain’s campaign manager since the last shake-up nearly a year ago. The shift was approved by Sen. 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 Sen. Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee, unless he revamped his campaign operation.

The last shake-up occurred at the beginning of last July as Sen. 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 the first shake-up drew to Sen. McCain, it had its desired result, a reminder that campaign upheavals are not necessarily a bad thing. In an early insight into the impact of Mr. Schmidt’s new role, the campaign is planning what will amount to a restarting of Sen. McCain’s candidacy after July 4, in which the U.S. Senator from Arizona will tour the country talking about a jobs program and visiting battleground states like Colorado, Wisconsin and Michigan that would illustrate the economic problems he will be talking about.

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.