Here’s Barry on Countrywide Financial:

However, it appears that Sen. Obama has no qualms with hiring people who have profited from doing business with those who are responsible for the “infection” of our economy:

Now that Barack Obama is the Democrats’ presumptive presidential nominee, we are starting to see more of the inner circle of the junior senator of Illinois . And it should give most people substantial cause to pause.

One name that has been ringing lots of bells is that of Eric Holder. He’s helping Sen. Obama vet prospective running mates.

Mr. Holder was a deputy attorney general in the Clinton administration who had designs on becoming attorney general in a Gore administration. He played a pivotal role in securing a dubious presidential pardon for Marc Rich, the commodities trader who fled the country in the 1980s to avoid prosecution for tax evasion. It was an outrageous situation that even had prominent Democrats screaming.

Then there’s James Johnson, another member of the vice-presidential screening committee. The Wall Street Journal reports he took at least five sweetheart real estate loans totaling more than $7 million from Countrywide Financial Corp. The rates were below market averages. A Johnson spokesman defends the loans as “well within the band of standard industry practices … .”

Countrywide, of course, is the poster child for the subprime mortgage mess. And Obama, once upon a time, lashed out against Countrywide for making sweetheart deals with its executives.

You are judged by the company you keep. And, thus far, Barack Obama’s company isn’t very flattering.

Here’s video of Sen. Obama’s justification for working with such people–which is, when you boil it all down, that he can’t be bothered to vet all of his employees. That should make for some interesting hires once he’s in the White House:

Ambinder has the goods on the McCain campaign’s structure around the country for the general election:

Sen. John McCain’s election planners are preparing to unveil a radically decentralized campaign structure over the next few months.

Instead of funneling authority through a few central figures at campaign headquarters in Arlington, VA, plans call for it to be dispersed to up to ten “regional campaign managers” –spread at satellite campaign offices throughout the country, according to two Republicans briefed on the plans.

“We don’t discuss campaign structure or strategy,” said Jill Hazelbaker, McCain’s communications director.

The 10 different campaign offices will run, in essence, 10 different campaigns, region-specific and constituent-specific, tailorable to fit around McCain’s unique coalition.

The campaign’s staff – less than 100 in total – gathered in Arlington this weekend and was briefed on the plan.

Campaign chief Rick Davis invited staff members to submit resumes and passed around an organization chart. There is no political director – normally, the senior staff member directly in charge of designing and implementing the campaign’s field program, according to someone who has seen the chart.

When he was the campaign’s CEO during McCain 1.0 – when John Weaver was chief strategist and Terry Nelson was manager, Davis signed leases for campaign offices in New York and Los Angeles, anticipating that early budget projections would allow for a version of a regional campaign.

The regional managers would have the authority to hire and fire, to adapt field programs to fit the needs of the states in their region. Unlike regional political directors, they would be part of the senior staff table at the campaign’s Arlington headquarters. Message and media, for the most part, would still be run through Arlington.

Since he wrapped up the nomination in mid-February, McCain’s campaign has received thousands of resumes from job-seeking Republicans. But campaign has kept a lid on the hiring process and has resisted calls from Republicans that they begin to hire more quickly. Quietly, Republican state parties have begun to hire aides to staff their general election “Victory committees” – more of than not, they have pedigrees from the Mitt Romney operation.

Eventually, the regional campaign managers will oversee campaign-chosen state directors and the Republican National Committee’s regional political directors, slowing assuming the more traditional structure associated with general election campaigns.

Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager, Patti Solis Doyle, left the position today, to be replaced by Clinton’s former top White House aide, Maggie Williams. The change formalizes a shift in the campaign’s power structure that began to set in after Clinton’s win in New Hampshire.The Politico’s Ben Smith obtained a copy of Solis Doyle’s e-mail to the Clinton campaign’s staff.

Link:

Fmr. State Sen. Scott Pruitt Joins Huckabee Campaign

AP — Former state Sen. Scott Pruitt will chair presidential candidate Mike Huckabee’s Oklahoma Leadership Committee.

Huckabee, who has been surging among Republican presidential candidates, said Thursday he and Pruitt share conservative values.

“He is well-respected within the Republican Party and throughout Oklahoma,” said Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas. “I welcome him to our organization and am thrilled that he is chairing our efforts in this important state.”

Pruitt was elected to the state Senate for two four-year terms beginning in 1998, and served as Republican whip and assistant Republican floor leader during his tenure in the legislature. He resigned his Senate seat to run for lieutenant governor in 2006, but was defeated in the GOP primary.

Pruitt is minority owner and general managing partner of the Oklahoma RedHawks minor league baseball team.

from the press release:

Today the Fred Thompson campaign announced the addition of Shannon Royce, an experienced social conservative coalitions director and former Executive Director of The Arlington Group, who will be joining the Thompson Campaign to serve as Grassroots and Special Projects Director.

Shannon Royce most recently served as Executive Director of the Arlington Group where she managed a coalition of over 70 organizations advocating on numerous pro-family initiatives. In that capacity, she coordinated coalition efforts on behalf of Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito. A former Legislative Assistant to Senator Slade Gorton and Legislative Counsel to Senator Charles Grassley, Royce also served as Director of Government Relations for the Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission from 1999-2003. Shannon is a graduate of Hardin Simmons University, and received a law degree from George Washington University.

“I have watched Senator Thompson for months and have been struck by his consistent record as a conservative,” said Shannon Royce. “His record is solid and his views are based on a deeply philosophical approach to the issues. I have had the privilege of working with some of the greatest leaders in the pro-family movement. I am now turning my attention to work with a man who can lead our nation. ”

Three former members of Senator Brownback’s campaign in Michigan this morning shifted their support to other Republican candidates.

The biggest name out of the three is Jerry Zandstra, who is the head of Pro-Life Federation of Michigan and a very outspoken critic of Romney and Giuliani. He was on Brownback’s steering committee and is now backing Senator McCain.

The other two are actually a couple - Gerald and Sonja Wall, who are “well regarded veteran GOP activists” in the state. They are now backing Governor Romney.

From Time and RealClearPolitics:

Fred Thompson’s one-time New Hampshire primary adviser, Dan Hughes, who for a time was identified as the campaign’s state chairman, has resigned and thrown his support behind Arizona Sen. John McCain for president.

Hughes is now the vice chairman of the McCain New Hampshire operation.

…

Hughes told FOX News that Thompson is not organizing in any way that indicates a serious candidacy and McCain is the “real deal.”

“Nothing happened. That’s why I left. If something happened, I’d still be there,” Hughes said. “What do they need me for if they weren’t going to do anything? I don’t want to be part of a campaign that’s going to say ‘Let’s write off New Hampshire.’ To me, that’s sacrilege.”

Just announced:

The Rudy Giuliani Presidential Campaign today announced the endorsement of Jeb Bush Jr. Bush joins the Giuliani campaign as Chairman of Florida Young Professionals for Rudy.

“As someone who grew up around politics and candidates, I know that Rudy has the leadership qualities and unmatched experience to be the next President of the United States . I’m honored to join his campaign and look forward to working with the many young professionals throughout Florida supporting the Mayor,” Bush said.

Bush’s activities with the campaign will focus on building grassroots support in South Florida and the recruitment of young professionals across the state.

From the Des Moines Register:

Republican Mike Huckabee’s campaign is warning supporters about a hoax e-mail claiming Huckabee’s presidential campaign chairman in Iowa is leaving the campaign to support another GOP candidate.”I’m not leaving my guy any time,” chairman Bob Vander Plaats said today of Huckabee. “I don’t know where this came from, but I think they see that Huckabee is gaining huge momentum, and he’s becoming quite a threat to a lot of people.”

The source of the e-mail was unknown but a Huckabee campaign aide had received a copy.

A Des Moines Register poll published Sunday shows the former Arkansas governor’s support in Iowa has surged 8 points to 12 percent since May among likely Republican caucus participants. Huckabee trails Mitt Romney, at 29 percent, and Fred Thompson, with 18 percent.

The e-mail purports that Vander Plaats is shifting his support to Romney after a poor fundraising quarter by the Huckabee campaign and it invites supporters to attend a press conference on Wednesday at the State Capitol for an official announcement.

Huckabee continues to raise less campaign money than his Republican rivals, but “this campaign is way more about message than about money,” Vander Plaats said.

Interesting. I wonder where the email came from.

Yet another campaign resignation from Team McCain this morning - this time the pollster he has employed for 16 years has quit:

Sen. John McCain’s longtime campaign pollster has severed ties with McCain’s presidential campaign, in the latest of a series of high-profile losses that have battered McCain’s struggling 2008 bid.

Bill McInturff, co-founder of Public Opinion Strategies, confirmed to ABC News that he ended his relationship with McCain’s campaign on Thursday.

The campaign’s money woes left it with a limited budget for polling, he said — the campaign has conducted only one poll all of this year — and the move will free McInturff to resume his relationship with NBC and The Wall Street Journal, for whom he has conducted polls since 2003.

The Washington Times and Marc Ambinder both have the scoop this morning. The bottom line: McCain has only raised $3.7 million in the 3Q thus far and campaign insiders predict he’ll finish with less than $4 million raised.

These numbers hurt even more because the McCain campaign is carrying $2.5 to $3 million in debt.

Add to that fact that McCain recently said goodbye to two more staffers who quit the campaign: Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox, who was McCain’s MI campaign chair, and Robert Terra, who “logged unhuman hours manning the senator’s war room.”

This news comes as McCain is trying to capitalize on improving national poll numbers, which have him up anywhere from 2-9 points in the last few weeks, and is considering a small ad buy in New Hampshire.

From the Politico:

Three aides in McCain’s national political department have resigned in recent days, nearly depleting an already-thinned out element of the Arizonan’s campaign and again raising questions about whether he has the organization to compete for the GOP nod… The only remaining staffer in the political shop is Mike Dennehy, the New Hampshire-based national political director.

…McCain backers sought to downplay the latest round of turnover, noting that they’re focused now on the traditional three early states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina and have seasoned operatives in each. That McCain’s losing more hands from his national operation, these sources argue, does not matter as much given the three-state strategy.

More staff shakeups, and this time it’s a big name:

Another top aide resigned from Republican Fred Thompson’s campaign as the former Tennessee senator made his bid for the White House official.

The latest staff member to depart is Mark Corallo, a senior strategist and spokesman who was one of the first people to join Thompson’s campaign. Corallo resigned yesterday, hours before Thompson formally declared his candidacy in a video posted on his Web site just after midnight, a campaign official said.

Trying to explain what this means for Team Thompson is NRO’s Campaign Spot:

Mark Corallo [was] formerly Fred Thompson’s chief spokesman and his right-hand man when it was just a bunch of folks around a kitchen table… As for Mark Corallo, he’s not Thompson’s Karl Rove; I don’t know if anyone plays that role on Team Fred. Maybe the better comparison is Karen Hughes or Joe Allbaugh, somebody who has been with Thompson from the very beginning. As somebody put it in the Corner yesterday, when you could fit the entire Thompson operation in a phone booth, Corallo was there. His departure is… surprising, as surprising as Karen Hughes heading for the door on the day Bush announced. While every campaign goes through some bumps in the road, growing pains, and personnel changes, these most recent ones seem very, very unusual.

Bloomberg reports:

“There appears to be something dysfunctional inside the Thompson campaign,” said Barry Burden, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. “He has been hemorrhaging staff pretty consistently without any explanation.”

Thompson has to show that he is capable of running a large operation, Republican pollster Whit Ayres said. Republican frontrunner Rudy Giuliani proved he has those skills when he was the mayor of New York, as did former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, Ayres said.

Staff shakeups are “more telling for him than for other candidates” because Giuliani and Romney “have significant experience and superb records as chief executives,” said Ayres, who isn’t affiliated with any of the campaigns. “Senator Thompson’s executive ability will be evaluated by how he structures his organization and runs his campaign.”

Thompson’s campaign responds:

“We aren’t forming a cabinet,” he said in an interview last week. “We are forming a presidential campaign, and that takes some time and you make adjustments along the way.”

From the BoGlo:

A month after decamping from John McCain’s flagging presidential campaign, Republican media strategists Russ Schriefer and Stuart Stevens have joined Mitt Romney’s merry band of image-makers. As reported today by The Washington Post, the two respected veterans of President Bush’s 2000 and 2004 presidential campaigns will help Romney craft not just TV spots but online media, an increasingly integral part of the 2008 campaign. Stevens and Schriefer will work alongside Romney media guru Alex Castellanos as part of an image team Romney’s campaign calls Midnight Ride Media.

I believe this is these are the first of the McCain Pinkslip Gang that have officially signed on with a rival campaign (let me know if I’m wrong).

Word of interview leaked earlier has now been confirmed by Fox as a hire.

WASHINGTON - Republican Fred Thompson, hoping to solidify his ever-changing inner circle for a Republican presidential bid, has named strategist Todd Harris to head his communications department.

Harris, a former aide to Sen. John McCain and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, will replace Linda Rozett who left the fledgling campaign operation earlier this week, according to a Thompson aide who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Harris served as deputy communications director to McCain during the Arizona senator’s 2000 presidential race.

He was communications director to then-Gov. Jeb Bush for the 2002 gubernatorial campaign in Florida.

Harris worked for Schwarzenegger from 2003 to 2005. He is currently a consultant in Washington.

Thompson, an all-but-declared candidate, sidelined his campaign-manager-in-waiting, Tom Collamore, and watched a few other aides follow him out the door amid consternation inside the operation about the active role of Thompson’s wife, Jeri.

He is expected to formally launch his candidacy shortly after Labor Day.

From the Fred Team:

Washington, D.C.-Former Reagan White House political aide Bill Lacy today was named manager of Fred Thompson’s testing the waters committee.”Bill Lacy worked in the campaigns of President Reagan, President Bush and Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole from 1980-1996,” Thompson said. “He turned around my campaign for Senate in 1994 and, as I move toward a decision on whether to run for President, I am confident he will take our operations to the next level.”

Lacy will have full operational control of the Friends of Fred Thompson committee and will report directly to Thompson.

“It is an honor to be working with Fred again,” said Lacy, who is taking a leave of absence as Director of the Robert J. Dole Institute of Politics at the University of Kansas. “My immediate goal is to provide stable, hands-on leadership and to retool the Thompson operation to implement a non-traditional, message-driven effort.”

Lacy was a GOP campaign professional in Washington from 1977-1996. He ran Ronald Reagan’s 1980 Maryland primary campaign, and served as Deputy Director of the National Republican Congressional Committee in 1981-82 before joining the White House staff as Deputy Director of Political Affairs. During Reagan’s reelection campaign in 1984 he was Political Director of the Republican National Committee and afterwards rejoined the White House as Director of the Office of Political Affairs.

Lacy held a senior role in Sen. Bob Dole’s 1988 campaign and served as Deputy National Chairman and strategist in Dole’s 1996 primary campaign. Lacy served as Thompson’s strategist and management consultant in his 1994 campaign until Thompson, down 20 points in the polls and written off by most of the pundits, persuaded Lacy to move to Nashville and take over day-to-day management of the campaign.

In 1996 Lacy assumed a senior management role in a privately held family business and in September 2004 was selected to be the Director of the Dole Institute of Politics.

“Every day at the Dole Institute I told students and others how important it is to get involved in politics, to take a greater interest in the affairs of our country,” Lacy said. “This is a tremendous opportunity to serve, an obligation in my view; I am honored that Fred Thompson has given me this chance.”

There’s a great piece in the American Spectator today by Jennifer Rubin (occasional contributor to R4′08) regarding Wendy Long, the chief counsel to the Judicial Confirmation Network. Wendy Long endorsed Mitt Romney last week and became his senior legal advisor and vice chair of his National Faith and Values Steering Committee, a move that Rubin calls “a political coup” because the conventional wisdom was that she would endorse and work for Fred Thompson. She explains why she chose Mitt instead:

She candidly acknowledges that she always liked Fred Thompson, in part because his support of causes like Scooter Libby “warmed her heart,” but ultimately concluded that Thompson could “not hold a candle to the Governor on intellect or leadership.” She contends that Romney is “the constitutionalist” in the race, meaning he best understands and supports concepts of federalism and the commitment to originalism in interpreting the Constitution.

Long also explains that leadership “matters tremendously” in selecting a president. For her this includes “the ability to direct the many and far flung team” that a president needs to confirm judges and lead the Justice Department. She cites Romney’s experience in business and running the Olympics and as Governor as proof he can “lead a large organization and then delegate” to competent managers.

Long argues that Romney “is the only one I’m absolutely sure” will give us more nominees like Justices Alito and Roberts.

Long is an articulate spokesperson both to bolster Romney’s conservative credentials and to take aim at Thompson, the opponent who clearly will pose a threat to his efforts to woo social conservatives.

From MSNBC:

The word spreading all over Capitol Hill today is that longtime Fox senior congressional producer Jim Mills is leaving his booth on the House side to join the Fred Thompson quasi-campaign as spokesman. NBC has confirmed that Mills will join Thompson’s organization effective August 20.

Lot’s of “OMG” and even “OMFG” being traded on the e-mail this morning among staffers and press because Mills is something close to a legend on the House side. Known for his pugnacious (yet jocular) style, everyone from Speaker Pelosi to the cashiers down in the basement have gotten a kick out of “Millsy” at one time or another, and in one form or another.

Update:
More from the NRO’s Jim Geraughty:

The reaction among those who don’t know him will be “Ah, a Fox News producer is joining the Thompson campaign, so much for ‘fair and balanced,’ blah blah blah.” For those of us who have encountered Mills on Capitol Hill, there will be a lot of raised eyebrows. Mills is something of a local legend in the Capitol Hill press corps - very smart, tenacious but fair questioner, relentless energy. He somehow manages to have a good relationship with lawmakers while asking them how they got their hand caught in the cookie jar, pointing out that their answer contradicts what they said yesterday with a friendly smile on his face.

One instinctively wonders how Mills will handle the transition from asking questions to answering them, but this is a very impressive hire for Team Fred.

R4’08s Tommy Oliver reported yesterday that Fred Thompson’s non-campaign campaign suffered the loss of his non-campaign campaign manager yesterday. Now, Marc Ambinder reports on another loss for Team Fred:

The day after his would-be campaign manager was replaced, Ex-Sen. Fred Thompson has another senior staff position to refill.

J.T. Mastranadi was hired just a week and a half ago to be the campaign’s director of research. He resigned this morning, a friend of his said. The friend said that Mastranadi was “fed up” with the “lack of structure” and was unclear about his role in the coming campaign…

Mastranadi was a former NRSC research director and is considered one of the best investigators in the business. Most recently, he worked with Thompson friend David Bossie on an anti-Hillary Clinton documentary.

The flubbing of his announcement date, his decision to stay out of the race until September, the rumors that he has raised less than $3 million in June, and now facing resignations and frustrations from within his own campaign before it even starts does not indicate any signs of upward trajectory for the Thompson campaign. For their part, the campaign responded by saying:

“Everything is on track,” Rozett said. “Friends of Fred Thompson continues to add people.”

[UPDATE: According to MSNBC's First Read, sources in the Thompson campaign say his June fundraising numbers will come in "in the range of about $3 million" and that fundraising after that in the summer has dropped "markedly" from even that disappointing total ($5 million was the publicly declared goal). Additionally, sources from Thompson's campaign say his wife Jeri is too controlling and has every decision being run through her at the moment. She apparently has her hand in every part of the campaign, from hiring to salaries to scheduling, and even down to the color of bumper stickers they make.]

Not exactly news that Enright was on the team, but former Michigan Senator and Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham has been named to head Team Thompson with Enright:

WASHINGTON - Republican presidential hopeful Fred Thompson is replacing his acting campaign manager with former senator and energy secretary Spencer Abraham and Florida GOP strategist Randy Enright.

Thompson spokeswoman Linda Rozett said acting campaign manager Tom Collamore, former vice president of food and tobacco giant Altria still will advise the campaign. Collamore has helped organize the campaign for Thompson, who has not officially jumped into the race.

“The Friends of Fred Thompson have made a number of changes as they prepare to enter the next phase, adding new experience and political strength to the organization,” Rozett said.

Enright has served as Florida regional political director for the Republican National Committee and was executive director of the Republican Party of Iowa and the Republican Party of Florida.

Abraham is a former Michigan senator who lost a bid for re-election in 2000 to Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow.

Rozett said Enright and Abraham both would be in charge of Thompson’s campaign. Enright is heading the political operation and Abraham doesn’t yet have a title, Rozett said.

Scott Reed, a GOP strategist and campaign manager for Bob Dole’s 1996 presidential campaign, said, “Collamore has put a good structure in place. Now the campaign can move to the next level with a formal announcement.”

From the Nashville Post:

Thomas D. Bell Jr., an Atlanta based commercial real estate heavyweight, has been tabbed by the Fred Thompson for President “campaign” to serve as national finance chair, according to NashvillePost.com sources.

Bell, CEO of Cousins Properties, will lead the charge in coordinating and raising money at the national level for former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson’s presidential bid. While Thompson has yet to officially declare, his entry into the race is all but certain and is expected sometime around Labor Day.

While Bell’s name may not be familiar to rank and file Tennessee Republicans, he is a giant among GOP fundraisers. The one-time University of Tennessee student (but finished at New York University) is well known throughout the rarefied air of major political contributors, Republican and Democrat alike.

In the political arena, Bell chaired the “Committee on the Next Agenda,” which focused on prioritizing issues for President Ronald Reagan’s second term. Early in his career, Bell served as Chief of Staff for former Tennessee Senator William Brock from 1973 until 1976.

More recently, Bell served on the finance committee of former Christian Coalition executive director Ralph Reed’s unsuccessful bid for lieutenant governor of Georgia and hosted a fundraiser earlier this month for Thompson in Atlanta. The Atlanta fundraiser reportedly brought in approximately $400,000.

UPDATES:

Also, Thompson has hired Andy Palmer to run his operation in Florida:

Former Florida GOP executive director Andy Palmer is set to run Fred Thompson’s Sunshine State operation, a Thompson aide confirmed.

Palmer, who ran the 72-hour program for Bush-Cheney ‘04, left the state party in June to join the Tallahassee consulting firm of Randy Enwright, who is to serve as Thompson’s national political director.

I’d forgotten to mention this earlier, and it may be common knowledge now, but Rich Galen has also signed on to the Thompson team. Galen:

a former top aide to Gingrich, will become a top adviser to Thompson, who is likely to officially enter the presidential race in September.

Note: I know some of you are getting tired of numerous Thompson posts a day, but Thompson is in the process of building his team, which the other candidates already have done, and were mostly covered here.

Link:

The Fred Thompson for President campaign (actually named Friends of Fred Thompson Committee) has named Linda Rozett as its Communications Director. For the last seven years Rozett has served as Senior Vice President for Communications at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Jim Robinson is taking over for Rozett at the Chamber in an acting capacity.

As head of the Chamber?s Communications Division, Rozett managed a 28-person team and oversaw the Chamber?s editorial, publishing, and marketing programs.

Prior to joining the Chamber in September 1999, Rozett worked for two national energy trade associations for six years: first as media relations manager for the Edison Electric Institute, followed by public relations director for the Natural Gas Supply Association.

Rozett began her career with ABC News. During her 13 years as a broadcast journalist, she held a number of senior producer positions, including two years as a field producer in ABC?s Chicago bureau for World News Tonight and two years as the Washington, DC, editorial producer for Good Morning America.

From Politico:

His official presidential announcement may be pushed backed, but that does not mean Fred Thompson is not working behind the scenes to build his organization.

The former senator has brought on Joseph Cella to handle social conservative outreach and J.T. Mastranadi to serve as research director, a source close to Thompson confirms. Both are rooted in different lines of the conservative movement family.

Cella has taken a leave from his position as president of Fidelis, a conservative Catholic advocacy organization. He and his organization were heavily involved in the confirmation fight of Justices John Roberts and Samuel Alito.

Mastranadi ran the research shop at the NRSC in the 2002 cycle (when top Fred backer Sen. Bill Frist chaired the committee) and worked at the House Government Reform Committee in the late 1990s when it was chaired by Rep. Dan Burton and launched many an investigation onto doings in the Clinton White House. On the committee, he met David Bossie, the Clinton tormentor who now heads the conservative group, Citizen’s United. Mastranadi has been working with Bossie in recent months on a forthcoming anti-Hillary Clinton documentary.

In addition to Cella and Mastranadi, Thompson has also added a political director and communications director. Randy Enwright, a veteran Florida hand with Iowa experience, will serve as p.d., per Bob Novak. Mike Allen reported yesterday that Linda Schoumacher Rozett, a top Chamber of Commerce official and former ABC News reporter, will run the coms shop.

Earlier, I had posted that Thompson had brought Randy Enwright on board. Today, Robert Novak reports that he will serve as the political director for the Thompson campaign:

Novak:

Randy Enwright, a Republican political consultant from Florida with ties to the Iowa presidential battleground, has been tapped as political director of Fred Thompson’s forthcoming presidential campaign.

Based in Tallahassee, Enwright worked on George W. Bush’s 2000 Florida campaign and has been the Republican National Committee’s regional political director for Florida since then. In the early ’90s, he was staff director of the Republican Party in Iowa, a state whose caucuses will kick off 2008 delegate selection. Enwright was executive director of the Florida party in 1995-1999 and adviser to Gov. Jeb Bush.

A footnote: Thompson insiders say published reports predicting the launch of his campaign on the Fourth of July were in error. They say they want to put all arrangements in place before formally announcing his candidacy.

Note: The media announcement that Thompson was not going to announce until September was false. There are rumors floating around about many different dates, and most of them are unconfirmed or untrue.

Marc Ambinder has the scoop on McCain’s campaign in Michigan, where McCain cut all of his paid staffers except for state director John Yob and closed up his campaign office. McCain is now reportedly relying entirely on volunteers to maintain a presence in the state.

At the same time, the Miami Herald has the scoop on McCain closing down operations in Florida as well, where “[a] cash crunch has forced Republican John McCain to gut his presidential campaign” in the state. The only paid staffer remaining in Florida will be McCain’s state finance director.

According to Carlos Curbelo, who organized McCain’s campaign visits to Miami, the McCain camp is refocusing their resources to “smaller, earlier states.” However, the McCain campaign also cut half of their staffers in Iowa (down from 16 to 8 ) this week as well, including his Iowa state campaign director, cut his New Hampshire staff down from 15 to 9, and “reorganized” his South Carolina team - which included undisclosed numbers of dismissals and pay cuts.

It’s hard to see how McCain can regain momentum after a run of bad stories like these, especially with the major meme from the media being that McCain’s chances are over. I have never joined in the chorus of pundits who claimed McCain’s campaign was finished, as I saw McCain’s political resilience and thought all the pronouncements of death premature. Now, however, you can finally add my voice to the choir: stick a fork in John McCain. He is merely rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic now.

[UPDATE: I got my Iowa numbers wrong - it's even worse for McCain. He in fact cut over half his Iowa staff and now only has 7 people remaining on the payroll in that state. Additionally, his national campaign manager is now working without a salary as well, and they cancelled all McCain's campaign events that were set in Iowa for next week.]

Jonathan Martin over at the Politico notes something that indicates Rudy is still sticking to his “early states be damned, let’s go for February 5″ philosophy of winning the GOP nomination: he’s hired an executive director for his campaign in… North Dakota.

That’s right, North Dakota, who is giving away their whopping 26 delegates on February 5th. The most interesting part about this, however, is that Rudy still doesn’t have a director for his South Carolina campaign.

So the question then becomes - Rudy is currently in third place in Iowa and New Hampshire, has been surpassed by Thompson in South Carolina, and is watching his lead get cut in Florida; if these trends continue (and that’s a big if five months before Iowa), can Rudy survive early state losses and win big enough on February 5th?

brought to you by the Buzz:

Fred Thompson lands Enwright

Brace yourselves, Mitt, Rudy, and John. The Buzz is that likely Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson has landed one of best political minds in the Florida GOP. Veteran GOP strategist Randy Enwright has stepped down as the RNC’s Florida guru to help Thompson test the waters for his likely presidential bid.

Enwright, a key adviser to Jeb in ‘94 and ‘98, a former Iowa GOP executive director and Florida GOP executive director from ‘95-’99, had been under contract with the RNC since 2001. This means former state GOP executive director Andy Palmer, also of Enwright Consulting, is aboard FL team Thompson as well, along with Adam Putnam and a growing list of lcurrent and former legislators. For all the talk that Romney and Giuliani had swallowed up all the GOP talent in Florida, this is a big get for Fred Thompson.

Robert Traynham

Fred Thompson has hired Santorum communications director, Robert Traynham, from pennlive:

Robert Traynham, former communications director for U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., had been wooed by several presidential campaigns, but seemed to be heading for something of a timeout from politics.
Now it seems he’s changed course and has signed on with actor and former Sen. Fred Thompson’s campaign as a senior adviser.
It’s a “shrewd move,” says Sharon Cobb…
who notes Traynham brings strong qualifications to the campaign plus hiring the openly gay man could help win support of moderate Republicans.
When we e-mailed Traynham last night saying we thought he was staying out of politics for a while, he responded, “I thought so too!”
“Yes, I am (on) board and very pleased to be helping Senator Thompson test the waters for a possible presidential run,” he wrote.

I will have a post in the near future highlighting all of Thompson’s high level staffers. There has been misinformation about who he has actually hired, and it needs to be cleared up.

??????? Steve Gill, a Tennessee radio talk show host from Nashville,?has written?a book coming out this Friday about Fred Thompson. The book, The Fred Factor: How Fred Thompson May Change The Face Of The ‘08 Campaign, looks at the background of this man and how his potential presidential candidacy in 2008 may play out.

Tennessee Republican congressman Zach Wamp has written the foreword, and the book was evidently written without the collaboration of Senator Thompson and his aides in order to avoid the perception that it is a campaign’s document.

In other Fred Thompson news, site poster Tommy let’s us know that Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post is reporting that the Senator has a campaign manager and campaign general counsel lined up for a 2008 race.

I am happy to announce that I have accepted a full-time job this summer with the Brownback for President Campaign and will start this Monday in Des Moines, Iowa. I am excited and thrilled about the opportunity to work on his campaign, and look forward to continue to build up youth support for his Iowa operation.

I come from a very politically active family, and have been working on campaigns since the moment I could walk and talk and used to get extremely frustrated during the 2000 and 2004 Bush campaigns sitting in my high school classes learning about God knows what when I knew I could be out in the field helping to elect our next president.

With my signing on with the campaign also comes my signing off as the chair of Students for Brownback, which will continue to operate as its own independent volunteer organization. I am proud what we have accomplished thus far and am confident that it will continue to be a force to be reckoned with in the future.

I hope to bring great ‘08 coverage to Race42008 straight from the cornfields of Iowa!

Giuliaini’s campaign got a much-needed shot in the arm today with the addition of Anne Dunsmore as his new deputy campaign manager for finance.

Anne was a Bush fundraiser in California in 2000 and 2004, raising more than $200,000 for the campaign, among nearly thirty years of GOP fundraising jobs under her belt - so she knows the ropes. She also raised money for the Republican Governor’s Association while Romney headed the organization, and it was widely assumed she would end up at Camp Romney.

If that wasn’t enough, Rudy also picked up one of the “smartest staffers and operatives” in Pennsylvania, Bob Holste. Previously, Holste was working with US Representative Phil English (in SAT terms, it would look like Holste:English::Rove:Bush), and has left English to sign on as Rudy’s “National Coalitions Director”.

All in all, two great pickups for Team Rudy that come at a much needed time for his campaign.