Steering the McCain Campaign, a Lot of Old Bush Hands

Some of those now working for McCain-Palin have overcome past political conflicts to join the team. Eskew was once reviled by McCain loyalists for his role running Bush's 2000 primary campaign in South Carolina; he not only joined Palin on her trip home to Alaska but also is serving as one of her closest aides. Stephen E. Biegun, a former member of Bush's National Security Council, was on the trip, too; he is helping give Palin foreign policy briefings.

Palin spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt worked on the Bush campaigns and, more recently, at the Republican National Committee. Two other Palin press officers, Maria Comella and Ben Porritt, worked on Bush's 2004 reelection campaign. W. Taylor Griffin, who worked on the 2004 campaign, is helping manage Palin's communications effort in Alaska. Another Bush advance pro, Chris Edwards, is helping to stage-manage Palin's appearances around the country.

It is not clear whether Palin will bring much of an outside apparatus with her at all, apart from an aide or two from Alaska. Comella did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

While a handful of McCain's longtime allies -- including his closest aide, Mark Salter, and two former lobbyists, Rick Davis and Charlie Black -- continue to hold senior posts in his campaign, many of his advisers from his first presidential bid now play tangential roles at best. In addition to Weaver, McCain's 2000 campaign manager, Michael Murphy, and press adviser Todd Harris are largely out of the McCain circle. The housecleaning, aides said, has been conducted largely by Schmidt, whose own Bush credentials run deep: He helped run the communications shop in the 2004 campaign and went on to work for Vice President Cheney and to shepherd the president's controversial nomination of Samuel A. Alito Jr. to the Supreme Court. Schmidt then ran California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's successful reelection campaign before withdrawing from national politics -- until he joined the McCain campaign in December 2006.

The personnel shift has become a cause of distress for some Republicans, who had hoped for a new brand of Republicanism to take hold, fueled by players who had experience outside Washington. "It's insane to me that at the same time that it's running saying it's not going to be the Bush administration, this campaign looks like the Bush campaign on steroids," said one Republican strategist.

No parallel exists on the Democratic side -- where the last White House team dissolved with President Bill Clinton's departure in 2001. And in a Democratic Party that has long been divided between Clinton people and non-Clinton people -- with most of the old Clinton hands working on Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential bid until three months ago -- Obama has wound up with an inner circle whose members have never worked in the West Wing.

Staff researcher Madonna Lebling contributed to this report.