Ed Rollins, Republican strategist, from CNN:...The first was the Rick Davis/John Weaver battle. Weaver and Mike Murphy, one of the best media strategists in the business, were the key players in the 2000 McCain effort and Weaver was the political guru who guided McCain's efforts since then. Davis, with a major assist from Cindy McCain and his former lobbying partner, Charlie Black, ousted Weaver.
Davis and Black, who masterminded Bob Dole's unsuccessful 1996 campaign and Phil Gramm's aborted presidential effort before that, are super lobbyists, and they opened the doors to their K Street allies.
Davis was then replaced -- in reality if not in title -- by Steve Schmidt, part of Karl Rove's operation. Schmidt is a first-rate tactician but new to McCain's world, and he still shares power with Black and Davis. This campaign would have been a much different operation if Weaver and Murphy had been brought back; but that was never going to happen with Davis and Black.
In the end, it's not relevant who holds what title in the McCain operation, because it is not being run by campaign professionals, but by the Washington lobbying class.
And no one seems to be in charge, least of all the candidate. The end result is a campaign suffering from "schizophrenia..."
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