Throughout the day, I’d been hearing rumors that there may be a new chief strategist coming to 
Schwarzenegger-land — that the venerable Mike Murphy was out, and that Matthew Dowd was in. I have my little "Rule of 6" that I use, where if I can’t get something on the record, I wait or seek out six sources that can at least tell me that they have heard what I have heard. Well, if I was really interested in ‘breaking’ news, I should have a "Rule of 5" — in this instance, my 6th source was none other than columnist Bill Bradley, who posted on his blog about the Dowd rumor ("Chief Strategist Dowd?" he writes, with the question mark.).
Who is Matthew Dowd, you might ask? Here is the first couple of paragraphs of his biography from a speaker’s bureau website (if you want him to talk to you personally about his background, a $10,000 speaking fee can have him at your bar-mitzvah, birthday party, or corporate retreat):
Matthew Dowd is a founding partner of ViaNovo, an international management and communications consulting firm with offices in Austin, Texas; Washington, D.C.; and Monterrey, Mexico. Matthew was Chief Campaign Strategist for Bush-Cheney 2004, where he oversaw all of the campaign’s media, message development, targeting and research – work that earned him the title of Pollster/Strategist of the Year from the bipartisan American Association of Political Consultants.
Prior to the 2004 presidential campaign, Matthew served as Senior Advisor to the Republican National Committee, and as Director of Polling and Media Planning for the 2000 Bush for President Campaign. During the 2000 campaign, he managed all public-opinion efforts, and spearheaded the strategic targeting and execution of the campaign’s almost $150-million advertising budget.
I found site where you can actually see and hear Dowd in color!
Dowd’s involvement with Arnolds "Team 2006" would be the second "Bush" man to join Arnold in the last couple of weeks, along with Steve Schmidt, one of the VEEPs top aides on his way out after the Alito hearings, to run day-to-day campaign operations. The good news is that Dowd and Schmidt understand the importance of base-voters to a politician. They can’t get here too soon if it means that on pragmatic campaign terms, they can stop the Bondinator from completely shredding any credibility with fiscal conservative voters, who otherwise may stay home in November!
According to Bradley on his site, Dowd has made a positive impression on First Lady Maria Schriver, who is apparently taking an active role in helping her husband assemble his campaign team.
What does this all mean for Mike Murphy, the apparently ‘outgoing senior advisor’ ? Who knows. He had a ton of clients before Arnold, and will have many going forward. Then again, this is just the "Rule of 6" – which hasn’t been wrong yet, though sometimes, like in the case of the change of Chiefs of Staff for the Governor, we’ve reported things a tad early.
Maybe this means that Mindy Tucker Flether, the Governor’s Deputy Chief of Staff for External Affairs, a seasoned W team member (serving as Press Secretary in the first 2000 campaign), will be able to put her George W. Bush bumpersticker back on her car!