Steve Schmidt

This morning, The Politico ran an innocuous-seeming story in which a series of unnamed Republican consultants and strategists – with the exception of Ed Rollins, who went on the record – took turn taking shots at various aspects of the McCain campaign’s strategy.

The story didn’t seem particularly surprising, given (a) McCain’s underdog status in the presidential race, which automatically makes many Republicans uneasy; and (b) the general willingness of unnamed consultants and “strategists” to use the cloak of anonymity to tell the world how much better Campaign X would be if they were running the show.  read more »

After a disappointing first-quarter result, John McCain's fund-raising operation is getting an overhaul.

According to an official with the McCain campaign, there will now be a concerted effort to get more out of the many former Bush rangers and pioneers that the campaign has assembled.

"We'll have a more established bundling program," said the official, adding that the campaign would ask its major fund-raisers to be more "aggressive and accountable."

In other words, McCain wants bundlers to vie with each other -- a phenomenon that seems to occur rather naturally in Hillary's donor universe.

"There will be more competition between the fund-raisers," said the official. "We're focused on providing them the tools that can provide success, by placing goals in front of folks, meeting those goals, tracking how we are doing more closely. Establishing metrics and meeting those." Another campaign aide said that campaign co-chairs Sen. Phil Gramm of Texas and former congressman Tom Loeffler will become more involved with the finance side of the operation, working with McCain senior adviser Steve Schmidt to boost fund-raising.

--Jason Horowitz

Mercury Public Affairs, the company that helped bring you three terms of George Pataki and is now working on John McCain's presidential campaign, just announced the hiring Arnold Schwarzenegger's campaign manager Steve Schmidt.

Interestingly, the formal announcement from Mercury's managing partner Kieran Mahoney doesn't mention McCain at all.

From the statement:

"[Schmidt's] experience in the presidential campaign, the California governor's race and the Supreme Court confirmation process gives him an unmatched understanding of how polling, grassroots mobilization, issue advocacy, government relations and media relations work together to achieve measurable business results."

Full statement after the jump.  read more »

-- Azi Paybarah

Sheldon Silver gave the Atlantic Yards project the go-ahead.

Chris Owens, son of Major and a major foe of the Atlantic Yards, debuts his new blog, "Power from Truth." Coincidence?

John McCain hired another old Bush hand, Steve Schmidt. Schmidt also managed Arnold Schwarzenegger's reelection bid.

Hillary did "The View." Sorry, no YouTube yet.

Joe Lieberman quit Olympia Snowe's Senate Centrist Coalition, choosing to start his own bipartisan group with the considerably more conservative Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander. Josh Marshall is confused.

TNR's Conor Clarke says the story of Barack Obama's land deal really isn't about impropriety, or the appearance of impropriety, but rather the appearance of the appearance of impropriety. In other words, there's nothin' there.

Jacob Weisberg says that just because you have a problem with Mitt Romney's religion, it doesn't mean you're a bigot.

Azi's curious why he got this email Christmas card from former presidential candidate Mark Warner. Hasn't anyone told him he quit?

You don't say... Remaining abstinent before marriage is "extremely challenging," according to the Washington Post. (via TNR's The Plank.) -- Andrew Rice