A familiar rolodex

Matt beat me to this, but as he said, once again, John McCain is A-1 New York Times. The story: holy cow the favorite for the GOP nomination is building a team with a lot of Bushee vets.

The McCain rolodex might not be as impressive as George H.W's famous two, but the diversity of his staff and advisers is impressive if not almost too diverse and impressive.

Some of the people mentioned in the Times article are former deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage, chief NYSE executive John Thain and George H.W.'s ad director Sig Rogich, Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr., NRA lobbyist James Jay Baker, harvard political economist Niall Ferguson (fantastic book, by the way), and Clinton's drug czar Barry McCaffery.

The article lists his economic and foreign policy advisors. The FOPO advisers are especially interesting, drawing on George H.W.'s NSA Brent Scowcroft (realist) and prominent neoconservatives like William Kristol.

"Among the more prominent members of the Bush team who said they expected to play a role in Mr. McCain's candidacy, if he chooses to run, are Mark McKinnon, a Texas political media consultant who has worked for Mr. Bush for years; Terry Nelson, political director of the Bush 2004 re-election campaign; Nicolle Wallace, that campaign's communications director; Wayne L. Berman, a Washington lobbyist, friend of Mr. Bush's and prolific fund-raiser; and F. Philip Handy, chairman of Jeb Bush'[s two races for governor in Florida and a major supporter of the president."

Now, McCain's been in politics for around 24 years, plus two decades in the military. That's a lot of contacts to manage. Networking is key:

"He has the most active cellphone known to the phone company," said John Weaver, his chief strategist.