McCain Relies on a Tight-Knit Circle of Confidants to Guide His Campaign
Known for being impulsive, the Republican nominee has encouraged a free-wheeling spirit on his team
Charles Black. The top strategist in McCain's presidential run, Charles Black is a courtly southerner renowned as a tough-as-nails political operative who has played key roles in presidential campaigns for decades.
Black grew up in Wilmington, N.C., and was inspired as a young man by Barry Goldwater. Known as Charlie to friends, he is seen as bringing a calm, level-headed—and usually disciplined—approach to such campaigns as those of Reagan, both Bushes, and Robert Dole. He was credited with helping to stabilize a wobbly McCain campaign earlier this year during a period of fierce challenges by competitors and fundraising disappointments.
But as a prominent, longtime lobbyist, this Washington insider has been a controversial fit with McCain's long-promoted maverick credentials and criticism of special interests. Black, 60, resigned this year from BKSH & Associates—the profitable lobbying firm he helped found in an earlier form—apparently to avoid suggestions of conflicts of interest and unflattering attention to his influence work and past clients. Those clients have ranged from blue-chip companies to foreign dictators and rebel chiefs, including the likes of Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines, Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire, and Jonas Savimbi of Angola.
Black this year made a rare stumble in a Fortune interview, asserting that a terrorist attack on the United States would prove "a big advantage" for McCain. The candidate disowned the remark. Black apologized.
The veteran lobbyist is not expected to have a formal role in a McCain administration.
Lindsey Graham. There is no one he trusts more, McCain has said, than Lindsey Graham, the scrappy, independent-minded South Carolina Republican who since 2002 has occupied the Senate seat once owned by the legendary Strom Thurmond.
The alliance formed almost spontaneously when McCain invited then Representative Graham to his office shortly after they met while working on the Clinton impeachment proceedings. McCain asked Graham if he would support his run for the presidency in 2000. Graham immediately signed on.
Call it a marriage of two mavericks whose humor is as finely matched as their political agendas. The former Air Force officer (who was called back to judge-advocate duty during the 1991 Gulf War) and small-town attorney known as the class clown in his Central, S.C., high school days was part of the Republican revolution that took control of the House and the Senate in 1994. A devout Southern Baptist who is unyielding on abortion and other social issues and a tireless champion of the military, Graham quickly gained a reputation for astute political instincts and joined the anti-Newt Gingrich faction opposed to the then speaker's compromises with President Clinton.
Graham alienated many South Carolina Republicans with his vigorous backing of McCain in 2000, which only strengthened his friendship with McCain. Differing only on his support for greater trade protection and the need for a marriage amendment, Graham echoed McCain's call for a military surge in Iraq and shares his views on torture, the rights of imprisoned terrorists, Social Security reform, immigration, and almost every other major policy issue. Unmarried, the 53-year-old Graham has been a tireless traveler and surrogate speaker for the McCain campaign, valuable not only as a counselor but as a friend who can take a joke as well as dish one out.
Graham is talked about as a possible attorney general pick under McCain, but some party leaders believe they may need his vote more in the Senate.
Orson Swindle. During McCain's five years in the Hanoi Hilton, Orson Swindle spent much of that time as his cellmate or in the adjacent cell. The two men quickly became friends, communicating with each other by tapping on the wall, relaying information about other American POWs. Swindle, who flew more than 200 missions in Vietnam before being shot down, was released in 1973. After returning home, he got an M.B.A. from Florida State University and eventually landed a job as director of the Reagan campaign's Georgia field office.
Reader Comments
His advisors are Bushies
His foreign policy advisors, as listed on his website, are cause for concern to any who believe the Bush administratiion had botched Iraq. His foreign policy coordinator, Randy Scheunemann, headed a group called Project for the New American Century. It called for the US to invade Iraq, install a friendly government, and build big military bases there so we could control access to oil. This was a year before 9/11. When 9/11 happened Bush followed their script in planning the war. Not surprising, as Cheney and Rumsfeld had both been part of PNAC. McCain has 8 or 9 people from PNAC advising him on foreign policy. Scary.
And This is Surprising Why?
I don't get the intention of this article, which Past President or Presidential Candidate ever - did not have a "Tight-Knit Circle of Confidants to Guide His Campaign" ???
Again.... the purpose of this article was ???
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