former McCain advisor looking to join a campaign...

The New Republic magazine backed McCain strongly during the Republican primaries. So it's with nostalgia that they report that McCain is definitely not running in 2004. However, their misery might well translate into Dean's fortune - when it comes to McCain's campaign advisor, John Weaver:

But while McCain may be sitting out the '04 race, the same probably won't go for Weaver. Although he has been waylaid from politics for a few months due to illness, Weaver is working almost full-time again, and sounded eager to work on another presidential campaign. (For a Democrat, that is: Weaver changed parties last year.) Weaver hasn't signed up with any campaign yet, but it sounds as if he will. For that we're glad. We just wish his candidate could be McCain.

we all know there's only one candidate in the field that can invoke the legacy of McCain's campaign... there are some interesting quotes from Weaver in an attack piece published in NRO last year that really are tantalizing:

If John Weaver really thinks Big Money politics is corrupt, one would think he'd go out of his way to avoid becoming a Big Money Washington consultant. It is on this principle that, say, televangelists don't cavort with strippers, or when they're caught doing it, at least act really embarrassed.

Weaver, however, is not embarrassed. His excuse is that he's the only honest man in Washington. "It's the difference between people who are in Washington to get something done and people who are in Washington who want to be someone," Weaver told Roll Call.

stripped of Lowry's highly-selective moralizing about Big Money, Weaver sounds like the kind of advisor who's looking for more Straight Talk. Let's see whether he can recognize it in Vermont.