A GOP operative who won plaudits for bolstering Mitt Romney’s recent debate performances is not being retained by the frontrunner’s campaign, an apparent victim of internal tensions over staff receiving too much credit for the candidate’s comeback, POLITICO has learned…
O’Donnell received phone calls late last week from two Romney advisers — campaign manager Matt Rhoades and informal adviser Charlie Black — where it was made clear that there was severe discomfort about how his role was being portrayed in the media and that he ought to tread lightly.
Then on Saturday, when the New York Times posted a Sunday story online detailing how Romney’s campaign targeted Newt Gingrich in Florida that again mentioned O’Donnell’s role with the debates, chief Romney strategist Stuart Stevens called O’Donnell. Stevens asked the adviser to contact Jim Rutenberg, one of the Times reporters who wrote the piece, and request that the reporter change the depiction of O’Donnell’s role in what would become a front-page article, according to Republican sources.
