The Atlantic’s Ambinder: Davenport’s Departure Means Mid-Atlantic Regional Campaign Manager Vacancy for McCain
According to The Atlantic’s Marc Ambinder, in “A Second McCain Aide Resigns”:
Doug Davenport, the only one with close ties to campaign manager Rick Davis, resigned on May 11, due to revelations that he had lobbied on behalf of Myanmar’s repressive and odious regime. Davenport had been one of the ten regional campaign managers, whose territory included the Chesapeake/Potomac area (Maryland, Virginia, DC).
Ambinder’s full post:
Doug Davenport, the regional campaign manager for the mid-Atlantic states, founded the DCI Group’s lobbying practice and oversaw the contract with Myanmar in 2002.
“Doug has tendered his resignation and we have accepted it,” Jill Hazelbaker, McCain’s communications director, wrote in a e-mail.
He joins former DCI Group CEO Doug Goodyear, who resigned yesterday from the post of convention CEO after Newsweek reported that DCI was paid more than $300,000 to represent Myanmar’s ruling junta.
Goodyear and Davenport were recruited by McCain’s campaign manager, Rick Davis, who has been accused by some current and former McCain advisers of take insufficient care of McCain’s reformer brand by appointing lobbyists to key positions. Ironically, as Newsweek reported, Goodyear was asked to become convention CEO after Davis’s lobbying firm partner, Paul Manafort, was nixed because of his own close ties to foreign governments and controversial companies.
Davenport did not respond to an e-mail seeking his comment last night.
On April 15, when Ambinder analyzed the McCain campaign structure, he noted the following:
Davis did not pack this elite roundtable only with his allies. Only one regional campaign manager can reliably be considered a longtime Davis ally — Doug Davenport, the RCM for the mid-Atlantic region.
Davenport’s departure creates a vacancy among the ten RCMs. With the nomination of Senator Obama all but assured, historically Republican - but trending Democratic - Virginia will be a genuine swing state for the first time in decades. No Democratic presidential candidate has carried it since 1964, but Obama is polling well there and has enormous strength in the DC suburbs in the northern part of the Commonwealth. So keeping Virginia in the Republican column will undoubtedly be the central goal for Davenport’s successor as RCM for the mid-Atlantic/Chesapeake states.
Thoughts are welcome.
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