From the John McCain camp, a secret revealed

How fitting that super-pundit David Gergen had a piece at CNN.com giving some free advice Thursday to Barack Obama.

Elsewhere, we learned that at the highest levels of John McCain's presidential bid, there exists the "Dave Gergen theory of the campaign."

According to a Washington Post piece that delivers the profile we've been waiting to read -- a look at McCain staff honcho Steve Schmidt -- here's how the "theory" is put into practice: "If senior members of the campaign disagree on a strategic move, they watch what Gergen has to say. They then do the opposite."

To be fair, the article notes that Gergen serves as "a metaphor for all talking heads."

Schmidt is the fellow who brought discpline and focus to the McCain campaign in a matter of weeks -- and has watched his candidate gain momentum in the process. So much so that Gergen -- in the best pundit tradition -- felt compelled to write this:

"From my perspective, Obama needs to introduce a game changer — and fast — before public opinion starts to gel around the notion that he is a phenom who deserves great respect but is not seasoned enough and would be too much of a risk in the Oval Office."

We can't help but wonder if Schmidt, adhering to his rule of thumb, would disagree with that take.

The Post piece, by Lois Romano, not only includes Schmidt's political self-description -- a "raging moderate" -- but offers insight into why, even as he has taken to shielding McCain from the media, he generally gets along with reporters. Romano relates that Schmidt suffers "from a learning disability that makes higher math difficult for him."

Just like virtually every journalist in America (the folks who bring you The Ticket most definitely NOT excluded).

--Don Frederick

Photo credit: Matt Sayles / Associated Press

Comments

[BJ]

Obama needs a game changer all right...

Hillary Clinton will sure change the game!

[Hilary Smith]

McCain is nothing without his advisors and "surrogates." Every time he opens his mouth he’s either sticking his foot in or spewing some sort of incoherent gibberish. He’s a puppet. It absolutely blows my mind that Americans would be duped into four more years of this garbage.

[dave]

cattleman samuel maverick down in texas, was famed for not branding his countless well-kept cattle.
as the story goes,
there once was a free-roaming but not very bright, unidentified, rebellious, bullish, restless, rootless wanderer, that one day got shot down abroad; daddy was an admiral, they say. dropped in the water all but dead, and drifted to the other side; there he was picked up and cut and branded, fed and broken in, enlisted and adopted, by a cunning vicious cattleman, who sent back to his former home the ex-maverick, to help gather and abduct, the greatest number possible, of free dim-witted cattle straying from the maverick freedom ranch.
and incidentally these days we see, some sort of tightly-noosed ex-maverick, getting hefted and hoisted, way up on the texas deck, of this run-down inland steame; and the admiring cattle herded aboard. an ex-maverick to navigate the dark wide river, command the cattle-crowded boat? with the ex-maverick securely tied to the helm, the boat is turned a guideless ferry, and the trip ends on the far side, where the cattle will be landed, when counted will be branded, and freedom will be moot.
daddy was an admiral they say. no not that flapping red admiral, not that migratory butterfly.

the constitutional republican candidate for president to consistently defend liberty and the constitution, is candidate for president, RON PAUL.