page_title: Steve Schmidt
section_title: Washington, D.C.
hierarchical_section_title: Steve Schmidt / Career / Washington, D.C.
caption_attribution_description: English: President George W. Bush shakes hands with Judge Samuel A. Alito in the Roosevelt Room of the White House Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2006, after the Senate voted to confirm Judge Alito as the 110th Justice of the Supreme Court. Looking on, from left, are: Harriet Miers, Counsel to the President; William K. Kelley, Deputy Counsel to the President; Steve Schmidt, Deputy Assistant to the President and former Senator Dan Coats (R-Ind.). At right are Mrs. Martha Ann Alito and Ed Gillespie. White House photo by Eric Draper
context_page_description: Stephen Edward Schmidt is an American communications and public affairs strategist who has worked on Republican political campaigns, including those of President George W. Bush, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Arizona Senator John McCain. He is best known for pushing McCain to select Sarah Palin as his running mate. He specialized in "message development and strategy".
  Schmidt was the senior campaign strategist and advisor to the 2008 presidential campaign of Senator John McCain. He was a Vice Chair at the public relations firm Edelman until he stepped down in July 2018.
  In June 2018, Schmidt renounced the Republican Party as "fully the party of Trump".
context_section_description: By late 2000, Schmidt was communications director of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.
  In 2001, he was the spokesman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, becoming the Communications Director by 2002.
  Schmidt joined the Bush administration as a Deputy Assistant to the President and Counselor to Vice President Dick Cheney. In 2004, he was a member of the senior strategic planning group, led by White House adviser Karl Rove, that ran President George W. Bush's re-election campaign; Schmidt oversaw the reelection "war room". In 2005 and 2006, he was the White House strategist responsible for the U.S. Supreme Court nominations of Samuel Alito and Chief Justice John Roberts.
caption: Schmidt with President George W. Bush in January 2006
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