The White House has begun making top-level staff changes in an attempt to fashion a coherent election-year message and boost President Bush's sagging popularity.
The appointments mark the first changes ordered by Samuel Skinner, who replaced John Sununu one month ago as chief of staff.Skinner has asked James Lake, a GOP consultant and lobbyist, to head the communications office at the White House, a critical post as Bush seeks to boost his declining popularity in a tough re-election contest.
In an attempt to improve fractured relations with some members of Congress, Skinner also has appointed former aide Nicholas Calio to run the administration's legislative affairs office, spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said Tuesday.
Fitzwater said Skinner has elevated Tim McBride, a long-time Bush family friend, to become an assistant to the president for management and administration.
Tuesday's announcements followed the quiet departure Monday of White House aide James Pinkerton, who immediately began working for the Bush-Quayle re-election campaign.
Pinkerton, a former domestic policy aide, worked on Bush's 1988 campaign and was responsible for discovering Willie Horton, the black Massachusetts prisoner who raped a Maryland woman while on a weekend furlough. Horton was featured in a controversial campaign advertisement successfully used by the Bush campaign to portray Democrat Michael Dukakis as weak on crime.
The personnel changes, though not surprising, come following a string of administration missteps and disappointments, including criticism over the recent Tokyo trade summit.