A post by Matthew Slutsky

McCain Staffing Up

Zelly

It appears that Former Deputy Secretary of State, Robert Zoellick, will go work for Presidential candidate John McCain.

From Time Magazine:

Former Deputy Secretary of State Robert B. Zoellick is planning to go to work fulltime next year for the presidential campaign of Sen. John McCain, overseeing development of domestic and foreign policy, Republican officials tell TIME.

The Arizona Senator has said he will not make a firm decision about whether to pursue the Republican presidential nomination until after November’s midterm elections. But his advisers are already doing heavy outreach to key early states in the nominating process like New Hampshire and South Carolina, and the Senator is traveling like a candidate. Now, the GOP officials disclosed, McCain’s advisers are making plans to launch a formal campaign in the first quarter of 2007 if he decides to go ahead.

Zoellick, who was U.S. Trade Ambassador in President Bush’s first term and is headed for Wall Street until he joins McCain, will be one of the top members of the prospective campaign’s senior staff. The officials say the arrangement was worked out about three months ago and came about because of mutual admiration between the Senator and Ambassador Zoellick, and through the involvement of Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. (R) of Utah, who’s an active McCain supporter and is close friends with Zoellick. McCain already has strong views and a large stable of advisers on foreign policy, so Zoellick will manage that process. The domestic side will involve more policy development.

John McCain is putting together his team for the race and it will include Howard Dean’s webmaster in 2004 Nicco Mele from the firm EchoDitto.

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