McCain shakes up campaign team

By Brian C. Mooney, Globe Staff

His campaign seemingly sputtering from a scattershot message and a meandering schedule, Republican presidential candidate John McCain has shaken up his staff again, tapping Steve Schmidt, a veteran of President Bush's 2004 reelection team, to take control of and tighten the day-to-day operation.

Campaign manager Rick Davis, who took over a fractious, spendthrift McCain operation after a drastic downsizing a year ago, will now focus on longer-term projects such as fundraising, the September convention, and vice presidential candidate selection, according to numerous reports.

Republican leaders have complained that McCain has squandered a three-month head-start on Democrat Barack Obama in the ramp-up to the fall general election campaign.

Schmidt, who had spent time on the road traveling with McCain, has a reputation as a tough, focused operative who can sharpen a campaign's message. In his expanded role, he will assume responsibility for the campaign's communication, strategy, and logistics, and his promotion pulls the plug on the campaign's experiment with a decentralized structure of 11 regional managers who were supposed to have a degree of autonomy.

Schmidt, who has worked closely with Karl Rove, President Bush's chief political adviser, managed the 2006 reelection campaign of California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and initially joined the McCain campaign as a senior adviser.