The personnel shift carries an ideological charge. Scheunemann, the former executive director of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, is a longtime neoconservative stalwart, as is Goldfarb, a former reporter and protege of Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol. They crafted for Palin a policy platform and voice reflecting an eagerness to use American force. The pair, who helped Palin with press and debate prep in 2008, were also something of Palin’s last link to Washington’s political establishment.

But Palin parted ways with that aggressive internationalism in a speech yesterday, condemning U.S. involvement in Libya and laying out a more cautious philosophy of the use of force. Schweizer has articulated a more skeptical view of the use of American force and promotion of democracy abroad.