Gov. Rick Perry is turning to some heavy guns from among Washington’s top Republican political pros to shape up his faltering campaign for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination.
Joe M. Allbaugh managed President George W. Bush’s 1994 gubernatorial campaign in Texas and his 2000 bid for the White House. Allbaugh was Bush’s first director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) from 2001 to 2003. Allbaugh will be a senior advisor to Perry.
Curt Anderson was deputy director of public liason in the Reagan White House and was part of Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbor’s team at the Republican National Committee. A Perry news release noted that Anerson “directed coalition outreach efforts for the Bush/Cheney campaign in 2000, led the RNC’s independent expenditure ad campaign to re-elect President Bush in 2004, was a member of the ad team for Mitt Romney’s campaign in 2007/2008.” He will be on the Perry national media team.
Stanton Anderson, another Reagan and Bush campaign veteran who is presently general counsel to Thomas Donahue, president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, joins the Perry campaign as its congressional liason.
Tony Fabrizzio, principal of Fabrizzio, McLaughlin and associates, joins the Perry campaign as a senior advisor. He was pollster and strategist for Florida Gov. Rick Scott’s 2010 campaign, and has advised more than 50 other senators, governors and representatives. He was Sen. Bob Dole’s chief pollster during the 1996 presidential campaign.
Also joining Perry’s national ad team is Jim Innocenzi, who with partner Steve Sandler, is a founder of the Sandler-Innocenzi advertising team that has handled a large number of top Republican campaigns in the past 28 years.
Nelson Warfield, head of the public relations firm bearing his name, will also join the Perry national media team. His firm most recently handled Florida Gov. Rick Scott’s campaign spots, as well as those of Sen. Pat Toomey and Rep. Tim Scott.
Finally, Fred Maas, founder and CEO of a California investment firm, joins the Perry effort as a senior advisor. He has previously advised Sens. John McCain and Bob Dole, Rep. Jack Kemp, and Govs. Pete du Pont, Richard Lugar and Mitch Daniels.
UPDATE: Erickson puts hires in perspective
Erick Erickson offers additional detail on several of the new Perry staffers that puts them in proper context of being associated with at least some insurgent candidacies, notably the Scott campaign in Florida.
He also offers an interesting piece of advice that strikes me as exactly right:
“I’ll give one piece of advice. Two-thirds of the public thinks America is in decline. Team Perry needs to now shut up about Texas and start talking about America channelling Reagan’s optimism.”
