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Others focus on mistakes they believe Davis made during the primaries. "My criticism of the current operation," says one McCainiac, "is that it's much more inclined to figure out what the senator wants and then organize that, as opposed to doing what's in his best interest to win." This McCainiac cites the use of Joe Lieberman, who often served as McCain's travel companion rather than as a surrogate: "McCain likes to have some people with him, but it didn't make sense to have Lieberman with him. You could have had twice the benefit if Lieberman went someplace else. But John didn't feel that way." Complains one Republican leader: "There's got to be someone or some people around with the kind of crazy cojones or attitude to tell the candidate no. Charlie's not going to do it because lobbyists by nature don't do that; they're in the making-friends business. And Mark [Salter] can only do it so much."
Even more pronounced is the griping about Davis's plans for the future. Now that Davis is in charge, he's taken his old decentralized strategy--the one Weaver and Nelson killed--off the shelf. As The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder first reported, the campaign will feature ten different regional offices that will be run as ten different campaigns. The offices will be helmed by regional managers who will have enormous autonomy--including the power to hire and fire and build their own field programs. As Charlie Black told me, "A presidential campaign is a series of statewide races. ... Because of the electoral college, you have to win individual states. The smartest way to approach that is to run statewide campaigns with smart people and experienced people, just like you were running a campaign for governor or U.S. senator."
