Longtime McCain confident calls McCain's ad "childish" "mockery""tomfoolery"

http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/07/weaver_mccains_former_strategi.php

John Weaver, for years one of John McCain's closest friends and confidants, has been in exile since his resignation from McCain's presidential campaign last year. With the exception of an occasional interview, he has, by his own account, bit his tongue as McCain's campaign has adopted a strategy that Weaver believes "diminishes John McCain."

With the release today of a McCain television ad blasting Obama for celebrity preening while gas prices rise, and a memo that accuses Obama of putting his own aggrandizement before the country, Weaver said he's had "enough."

The ad's premise, he said, is "childish."

"John's been a celebrity ever since he was shot down," Weaver said. "Whatever that means. And I recall Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush going overseas and all those waving American flags."

Weaver remains in contact with senior McCain strategists and, for a while early this year, regularly talked to McCain.

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He added: "There is legitimate mockery of a political campaign now, and it isn't at Obama's. For McCain's sake, this tomfoolery needs to stop."

On a conference call with reporters, McCain campaign manager Rick Davis said the ad "addresses a unique facet in Barack Obama's campaign that is unlikenbsp; any other campaign we've seen in modern history: a campaign that is focused on the development of an enormous image of celebrity status." Davis and Weaver do not get along, and the campaign's operations chief, Steve Schmidt,was reportedly upset that Weaver told the New York Times that the campaign "lost" the week that Obama went overseas.