John Weaver (political consultant)
John Weaver is a notable political consultant with a long history in American politics, particularly within the Republican Party. Born in Kermit, Texas, he developed an early interest in politics, which led him to work on various political campaigns. His career began in earnest when he served as a media consultant for Wendy Gramm's congressional campaign, eventually managing Gramm's successful Senate race after he switched from the Democratic to the Republican Party. Weaver gained further prominence as political director for John McCain's 2000 presidential campaign, where he introduced innovative strategies, such as the Straight Talk Express bus tour.
Throughout his career, Weaver has positioned himself as a pragmatist, often advocating for a more inclusive Republican Party that addresses the concerns of a diverse electorate. His tenure in various campaigns has been marked by tensions between traditional Republican values and the party's more extreme factions, particularly during McCain's 2007 campaign, where his vision clashed with the growing influence of the Tea Party. Weaver has also advised candidates outside the mainstream, including Michigan's Rick Snyder and Ohio's John Kasich, both of whom sought to chart a centrist path in an increasingly polarized political landscape. Despite personal health challenges, including a battle with leukemia, Weaver continues to influence political strategies and discussions within the Republican Party.
John Weaver (political consultant)
Political consultant and campaign strategist
- Born: 1959
- Birthplace: Kermit, Texas
Education: Texas A&M
Significance: In an era of contentious political campaigns that often focus on the horse race of elections rather than on actual policy, John Weaver has directed state and national political campaigns that focus on big-picture policy positions. Known primarily for his work with Republican Party candidates, Weaver has crafted campaigns that have attempted to position GOP candidates in the center.
Background
John Weaver was born in the small Texas oil town of Kermit. He grew up in a middle-class family with strong ties to the local Democratic Party. As a teenager, he became interested in the rough-and-tumble world of Texas politics—he was particularly fascinated by the machinations at the national GOP convention in 1976 in which Gerald R. Ford and Ronald Reagan both bid for the party’s nomination.
During his sophomore year at Texas A&M, Weaver, on assignment from the school’s newspaper, the Battalion, was asked to interview a popular university economics professor, Wendy Gramm. Her husband, Phil, also an economics professor, was impressed by the article Weaver wrote. When Gramm decided to run for a Democratic congressional seat in 1978, he hired Weaver to write media releases.
Gramm was successful, but immediately ran afoul of the Democratic Party when he supported the tax cuts of the first Reagan budget. In a bold move, Gramm left the Democratic Party, resigned his seat, and, in 1984, ran for the Senate as a Republican with Weaver as his campaign manager. Gramm won—and that political campaign, specifically Gramm’s commitment to policy over party, deeply impressed Weaver.
Weaver returned to Texas politics. When he helped guide Bill Clements to his dramatic return to the governorship in 1986, Weaver accepted the position as executive director of the state party, which led to brief run-ins at fundraisers with John McCain. Weaver’s tenure was stormy, and with the rise of George W. Bush in Texas politics, Weaver left the party in 1988 to work as a political consultant for a variety of state and national causes.
Consulting for Presidential Campaigns
At the same time, Weaver had ambitions for a prominent role in directing the Republican Party’s reemergence during the administration of President Bill Clinton in the 1990s. After directing Senator Gramm’s brief run for the Republican presidential nomination in 1996, during which he became closer to McCain (who served as the national chairman), Weaver realized that the emerging star in Texas politics was Bush and that he had no place on the Bush team, which was directed by Karl Rove. Given Bush’s plan for a 2000 White House run, Weaver recalled his association with McCain. He reasoned that, at that time, McCain’s straight-talking style could be attractive to a public weary of perceived White House deceptions. McCain invited Weaver to head up his team as political director.
Weaver developed a plan for McCain that would match Bush’s inexperience against McCain’s long public career, originating the idea to familiarize the nation with his candidate through the Straight Talk Express, McCain’s iconic campaign bus on which reporters had virtually unlimited access to him. However, after McCain won the first presidential primary in New Hampshire, the Bush team, under Rove’s direction, mounted an ugly character assassination campaign in the next primary state of South Carolina. Weaver advised sticking to the campaign’s visionary agenda for political and economic reform, but the attack succeeded—Bush dominated McCain and went on to claim the nomination and the presidency. Partly in response to the campaign, Weaver left the Republican Party and then mainstream politics altogether to head up a private political consulting firm, The Network Companies.
In 2007, Weaver returned to the Republican Party to direct John McCain’s second run for the White House. However, his vision of a principle-driven campaign created friction as political operatives within the McCain campaign advised catering to the party’s growing far-right wing, the Tea Party. By July 2007, after McCain was defeated in the New Hampshire primary and with fundraising low in addition to infighting among staff, Weaver left the campaign entirely.
In 2009, Weaver was approached by Rick Snyder, a business executive with no political experience, who was running as a Democrat for the governorship of Michigan. In many ways, Snyder was a perfect fit for Weaver’s vision of pragmatic politics—Snyder had no strong party affiliation. He had an extensive economic revitalization plan—Weaver worked with that, creating the campaign slogan "One Tough Nerd" and guiding Snyder to an eventual win. In 2012, he ran the short-lived, failed bid of Utah governor Jon Huntsman for the Republican presidential nomination. In the summer of 2015, he was hired by John Kasich, the popular Ohio governor who was assembling a team for a 2016 presidential run. Kasich, a Republican, was a centrist with more than two decades of government experience in bipartisan cooperation. After the divisive stalemate politics of a Republican-dominated Congress during President Barack Obama’s second term, Weaver saw in Kasich an attractive alternative. Given little chance, the Kasich campaign ended up being the last of the field of sixteen Republican candidates to bow out against business entrepreneur Donald J. Trump.
Impact
Because of his pragmatic sensibility, Weaver is perceived within the Republican Party as being the man who can make electable Republicans unelectable because he refuses to cater to the conservative base. Weaver has warned the party that its base was creating divisions, arguing passionately that the party was too obsessed with the winning and losing of campaigning. If the party were to remain relevant, he claimed, it needed to soften its rhetoric, expand its base to reflect cultural diversity, reexamine its hard-line stand on social issues (most notably immigration and abortion), and tackle the hard economic realities of balancing social programs and defense programs.
Personal Life
Weaver and his wife—since divorced—have raised two children, a daughter and a son. In 2002, he was diagnosed with leukemia. He battled the disease for two years until, in 2004, it went into remission.
Bibliography
Burka, Paul. "Leave It to Weaver." Texas Monthly. Texas Monthly, Sept. 2008. Web. 24 Aug. 2016.
Heilemann, John, and Mark Halperin. Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime. New York: HarperCollins, 2010. Print.
Levinson, Alexis. "Kasich’s Squishy Svengali." National Review. Nat. Review, 10 June 2015. Web. 24 Aug. 2016.
Ramsey, Ross. "Weaver Has a Candidate, but It’s Not Rick Perry." Texas Tribune. Texas Tribune, 27 June 2011. Web. 24 Aug. 2016.
Wallace, David Foster. McCain’s Promise: Aboard the Straight Talk Express with John McCain and a Whole Bunch of Actual Reporters, Thinking about Hope. Boston: Back Bay, 2008. Print.
Zengerle, Jason. "Winning Isn’t Everything." Politico. Politico, Nov./Dec. 2015. Web. 24 Aug. 2016.