McCain/Palin - Using The Same (Bush) People

It is well documented that McCain is really no maverick and no different than Bush or any other Republican. Despite his lips saying he's not at all like Bush, McCain is tightly intertwined with George Bush.

According to several news reports, McCain has hired several veterans from President Bush’s campaigns, making them part of a team dedicated to defending Ms. Palin from Internet reports, Democratic attacks and potentially damaging news reports about her record produced by the investigative journalists now in Alaska.

McCain’s campaign has dispatched another team to Alaska to respond more rapidly to such reports. It is headed by Taylor Griffin, who had worked for President Bush’s 2004 campaign. Another former Bush campaign aide, Tracey Schmitt, is now Ms. Palin’s traveling press secretary.

Tucker Eskew, a veteran of Mr. Bush’s primary season campaign against Mr. McCain, has been advising Ms. Palin this week while reading briefing materials or receiving tutorials from policy advisers.

On Wednesday night, three of them were on the plane to Alaska with Palin: Douglas Holtz-Eakin, Mr. McCain’s economic adviser; Steve Biegun, a former staff member of Mr. Bush’s National Security Council who has taken leave from his Ford Motors job to advise Palin; and Randy Scheunemann, Mr. McCain’s senior foreign policy adviser.

Also accompanying Palin to Alaska as she prepared for her interview was Nicolle Wallace, a communications director for Mr. Bush’s 2004 campaign and, later, his White House. Ms. Wallace’s husband, Mark Wallace, Mr. Bush’s deputy campaign manager in 2004, is helping prepare Palin for the debates.

McCain advisors have developed a set of presumed questions and answers that they are walking Palin through. Aides traveling with Palin have said she is a fast study — asking few questions of her policy briefers but quickly regurgitating their main points.

A former aide in Alaska who had helped prepare Palin for her campaign debates in Alaska said she had a talent for distilling information into digestible sound bites.

Just what America needs most!