Sane voters typically don't pay attention when a presidential campaign shakes up its staff. And most of the time, they're right to tune out. Except when it comes to John McCain. Over the past eight years, three Republican operatives have served as the Arizona senator's right-hand men, guiding him through a pair of presidential runs--and determining, to a remarkable degree, the tone and direction of his career for the duration of their tenure at the top. Now, 10 days after several aides warned McCain that he "was in danger of losing the presidential election," he's added a fourth name to the list: Steve Schmidt. Here, we explore how McCain's previous gurus shaped his candidacies--and anticipate where Schmidt will take him next.

The Maverick: John Weaver

Everything we now consider "quintessentially McCain" can be traced back to him. A lanky, brooding, volatile Texan, Weaver convinced the longshot Arizona senator to challenge George W. Bush for the Republican nomination in 2000--and, as top strategist, lovingly oversaw every aspect of that year's "maverick" campaign. "Weaver's the guy who stayed on top of him [and] said, 'Not only should you run but I have a plan to get you there," McCain spokesman Howard Opinksy told the Washington Post at the time. Among his ideas: McCain's trademark "town hall meetings," which the candidate recently called "the most important part, in my view, of the process"; the "Straight Talk Express," named over a bottle of merlot; and freewheeling, unfettered access for reporters. Weaver's mantra: "Let McCain Be McCain." Circa February 2000, Bush had 174 staffers. McCain got by with 80--none of whom, thanks to Weaver, was allowed to "handle" the candidate. McCain was droll, darkly humorous, fiercely competitive and quick to anger, and so was Weaver (in 2000, he smashed three Nokia phones). That became the tone of the campaign. The strategist despised Karl Rove, a colleague from Texas who once "nearly destroyed John emotionally" over a billing dispute, according to his wife Rhonda, and positioned McCain, the outsider, in opposition to Bush. "In the past I've worked for a lot of guys who want us to tell them what to believe," Weaver told the Post in 2000. "It's just a chase for money. You feel dirty, like a hired gun." But no more, he said. "I'm on the side of the angels in this one." After Rove's dirty tricks sunk McCain in South Carolina, Weaver left the Republican Party, registered as a Democrat in Manhattan and briefly consulted for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

The Establishmentarian: Terry Nelson 
 
McCain's second White House run effectively began in 2002, when Weaver returned to orchestrate the senator's public reconciliation with Bush and make amends (behind the scenes) with his old nemesis Rove. It was clear from the start that the tone and scope of "McCain 2008: The Sequel" would be more generalissimo than guerrilla. McCain and Weaver spent 2005, for example, courting the Pioneers, Rangers and Super Rangers who each helped collect hundreds of thousands of dollars for Bush in 2000 and 2004. But the real sign that McCain's boat-rocker days were over came on March 19, 2006, when Weaver hired Terry Nelson to run McCain's Straight Talk America PAC (he later became McCain's campaign manager). Political director of Bush's 2004 reelection bid, Nelson was, in the words of Philadelphia Inquirer political columnist Dick Polman, "one of the most notorious hardball specialists of the Republican establishment." Nelson had, among other things, produced the famous, race-baiting Tennessee attack ad in which a semi-naked blond bimbo told Democratic senatorial candidate Harold Ford--an African-American--to "Call [her]." He'd run the GOP's massive negative ad blitz in advance of the 2006 midterm elections. He'd working alongside one of the principals behind the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. He'd played a key role in helping DeLay and his money men allegedly evade a Texas law that bans the use of corporate money in Texas campaigns. And he'd overseen the New England operative convicted and jailed for his criminal role in a successful effort to jam Democratic party phone lines on Election Day 2002. The message, of course, was that McCain was playing to win this time. To that end, Nelson oversaw the creation of a behemoth organization modeled on Bush-Cheney '04, with a $154 million budget and scads of overpaid consultants and state directors. The only hitch? Nelson was spending money faster than McCain--whose full-throated support for comprehensive immigration reform had enraged the Republican base--could raise it. By July of last year, the campaign had less than $1 million the bank, and Nelson tendered his resignation to a furious McCain. "McCain never bonded with Terry Nelson," a longtime friend of the senator told the Post at the time. "They just didn't click." Weaver resigned the same day.

The Budgeter: Rick Davis

 With his bloated, formerly unstoppable campaign in shambles--and only six months to go until the Iowa caucuses--McCain turned to longtime staffer Rick Davis for help. But although Davis joined the McCain camp in 1998--at the same time as Weaver--he was never much of a maverick. A former lobbyist and friend of lobbyists, Davis wore a jacket and tie at all times. He was even-keeled and charming. He was, in other words, a "creature of the political mainstream," as David Brooks once put it. Unsurprisingly, Davis and Weaver, the romantic renegade, didn't get along--to put it mildly. It's "a mutual hatred that is total, absolute and blinding," one McCainiac told Brooks. Until the collapse, McCain was loyal, in part, to each camp--part insider, part outsider. But with no money and no infrastructure, the candidate no longer had the luxury of divided loyalties, and Davis, a steady manager, experienced finance man and close confidant of Cindy McCain, won out. Recognizing that the Bush model was no longer feasible, Davis immediately cut costs, eliminating jobs, dumping well-paid consultants, renegotiating outstanding bills and asking any remaining loyalists to work for free. Tellingly, McCain's slick, $10,000-a-day "Straight Talk Express" was traded in for a $10,000-a-month jalopy. "It’s not as nice a bus," Davis told the New York Times last October. "It just broke down with an alternator problem.” But the bus--and Davis's back-to-basics budgeting--got McCain where he needed to go. During the second half of 2007, the candidate focused relentlessly on town hall meetings--especially in New Hampshire, which had put him on the political map with a primary win in 2000. Traveling the state in a borrowed SUV, McCain didn't shy away from his controversial view on immigration or his support for the surge in Iraq—even when he slipped to single digits in the polls. It paid off. On Jan. 8, McCain finally won his second Granite State primary and immediately vaulted to the front of the GOP pack. "The greatest political comeback in history," Schmidt, then a senior adviser, told NEWSWEEK.

The Rove: Steve Schmidt

Davis's lean-and-mean, last-resort strategy worked for McCain in the primaries. But it's proven to be a bad fit for the battle with Barack Obama--i.e., the best-funded, best-organized Democrat in modern political history. Blessed with a four-month headstart, Davis has done little to establish a consistent message, boost sluggish fundraising or shape an efficient organization, and his cash-first mentality led McCain to (counterproductively) deliver speeches on energy reform in Houston and offshore drilling in Santa Barbara because he happened to be raising money nearby. By June, insiders and top GOP officials were growing "increasingly uneasy about the direction of the McCain presidential campaign." "McCain’s campaign seems not to have a game plan," veteran republican operative Ed Rollins told the Politico just this morning. "I don’t see a consistent message. As someone who has run campaigns, this campaign is not running smoothly." In response, McCain has now put Schmidt in charge of day-to-day operations--communications, scheduling and basic political strategy--and left Davis to do what he does best: manage the money. The shakeup comes a year to the day after Weaver and Nelson departed.

So what should we expect from Schmidt? A bald, barrel-chested "partisan pugilist" who labored under Karl Rove on Bush's 2004 bid--he also ran Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's reelection campaign--McCain's new guru "speaks in pre-fabricated, consumable, sharp morsels," according to Marc Ambinder. "McCain has learned from Schmidt that it's OK not to be a referee, that it's OK not to play the judge, that it's OK to draw contrasts with your opponents." In other words, he's learned to be an effective (if more traditional) Republican presidential candidate. Schmidt, 37, lacks his predecessors' deep emotional ties to the boss, so he's more likely to assess (and correct) the candidate's weaknesses with the objective eye of an outsider. That in mind, expect tighter message discipline from McCain--two other Rove vets, Nicole Wallace and Greg Jenkins, have joined McCain's communications team--and crisper, more consistent attacks on Obama, whom the campaign plans to paint as an unprincipled opportunist (in contrast to McCain, who "puts his country first"). Think more "professional." After all, it was Bush's Brain who gave Schmidt his nickname: "Bullet."

Will it help? Who knows. That said, if McCain is still trailing Obama by six points in the polls at the end of the summer, don't be surprised if he calls on John Weaver to, you know, recapture the magic of 2000.