Yahoo! News: Bush's Top Campaign Staff Defecting to GOP 2008 Hopefuls

[PhilipShore]

Yahoo! News (press release)
NEWSWEEK: Bush's Top Campaign Staff Defecting to GOP 2008 Hopefuls
February 5

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/060205/nysu009.html?.v=42

Many Bushies Joining John McCain: 'Probably Our Conscience Bothers Us a Little That We Didn't Support Him Before,' Says One

NEW YORK, Feb. 5 /PRNewswire/ -- As President Bush tours the country to promote the agenda he laid out in last week's State of the Union Address, key members of his campaign team are being poached by wanna-be candidates of 2008, reports Senior White House Correspondent Richard Wolffe in this week's Newsweek. "This is the first time in a long time where a lot of those people who have been out there for the president are free agents," says one important member of Bush's team. "This is the courtship period, and some are courting aggressively."

There are already four could-be candidates well into the wooing phase, according to several of the president's loyalists: Sens. Bill Frist of Tennessee, George Allen of Virginia and John McCain of Arizona, and Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. McCain, who lost the GOP presidential nomination to Bush in 2000, has signed up several of Bush's elite fund- raisers, reports Wolffe in the February 13 issue (on newsstands Monday, February 6). The biggest catch is Tom Loeffler, a former congressman from San Antonio, who is a Bush-family loyalist and helped build Bush's money machine in 2000. Kent Hance, a former congressman from west Texas, has also climbed aboard the McCain bandwagon. "Number one, he's the best person for the position," Hance said. "Number two, probably our conscience bothers us a little that we didn't support him before." Another prize pickup: Ron Weiser, who was Bush's finance chairman in Michigan in 2000.

And Mark McKinnon, Bush's advertising guru, says he has told the president that he wants to work with McCain-so long as Bush's closest allies, like his brother, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, and Secretary of State Condi Rice, stay out of the race. "I'd rather lose with McCain than win with somebody else," says McKinnon, who remains close to the Bush White House.

Senior strategist Karl Rove-the hottest of all '08 hires-has urged several Republican operatives not to distract attention from the Bush plan. "The message that gets circulated from the White House is that this president shouldn't be made a lame duck before his time," says Tom Rath, an RNC member from New Hampshire who is close to Rove.


(Complete article can be read at www.Newsweek.com.)

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11180783/site/newsweek/

[rfranklin]

1. Rats deserting the sinking ship...

Vectors of Republican disease...

[formercia]

2. The pitter-patter of little rat claws

on the deck of a sinking Ship of State. The lifeboats, filled with rats, are headed away from the resulting whirlpool.