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In an interview with National Public Radio this morning, Steve Schmidt, John McCain’s chief strategist, suggested that the media have been unfair in their coverage of the extreme rhetoric that has surfaced at some recent McCain-Palin rallies.

"Now, both campaigns have thousands of people in their crowds, and we had one person yell something inappropriate at ours, and of course we condemn it," Schmidt told Renee Montagne. "You see that happen at Obama rallies. The difference is, it seems that when it happens at a McCain rally it gets covered on television. When it happens at an Obama rally, it doesn't get covered."

Schmidt also reaffirmed McCain's vow that Barack Obama's former pastor, Jeremiah Wright, is (officially) off limits for the campaign. (Sarah Palin has discussed the relationship, saying, "I don’t know why that association isn’t discussed more, because those were appalling things that that pastor had said about our great country...")

"Yeah, there are certainly millions of Americans who have deep concern about that relationship," Schmidt said. "But Senator McCain has been clear from the earliest days of the campaign when the story first entered the American consciousness that he would not use this issue in the campaign, and that remains his position."

He also identified the states that he considers most important to a McCain victory.

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John McCain’s senior campaign strategist Steve Schmidt, who has become a central figure in the Republican Party, has drawn comparisons to Karl Rove, whom he worked with beginning around 2004.

But as Ana Marie Cox reported this week, those comparisons can be misleading. While Rove has hewed to the far right of his party over the course of his career, Schmidt has spent time working with candidates closer to the center, among them Arnold Schwarzenegger, Lamar Alexander and Matt Fong. While Schmidt was Fong’s spokesman, the candidate signed a pledge negotiated with the Log Cabin Republicans, a gay Republican group, to protect certain rights for gays and lesbians.

“This is not something a Rove protege would have done,” Cox wrote. “Rove's career has been based on a very different approach to politics, driven more by polls and a tightly controlled narrative designed specifically to appeal to social conservatives.”

Now comes news that on the day that McCain was giving his GOP nomination acceptance speech before the Republican base in St. Paul, Schmidt met with the Log Cabin Republicans.

“I just wanted to take a second to come by and pay my respect and the campaign’s respect to your organization and to your group,” Schmidt told the group, according to The Advocate. “Your organization is an important one in the fabric of our party.”

As The Advocate notes, “This convention marks the first in history that Log Cabin Republicans, an LGBT rights organization, have been fully credentialed official guests of the GOP host committee.” Sen. Alren Specter, RNC treasurer Tim Morgan, and McCain political director Mike DuHaime also addressed the group this week.

John McCain advisor Steve Schmidt, who this week was put in charge of most major operations of the campaign, sent a memo out to McCain's regional campaign managers today.

The memo announces the campaign is "going to be adding a Political Director and a Field Director to our headquarters organization," and it is also an attempt to rally the troops: "We have all been involved in presidential campaigns in the past, but this campaign is special because of the unique honor of working for a candidate like John McCain – a man who never surrenders," Schmidt writes.

As CBS News chief political consultant Marc Ambinder notes, "Schmidt's overhaul of the campaign's political and field shops will be comprehensive." The McCain advisor, who said on Tuesday that "perfection is our goal," is seen as an aggressive, bulldog-type campaigner whom Republicans hope will bring greater message discipline and sharper elbows to the campaign.

Full memo below.

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Ten months ago, John McCain’s campaign was running on fumes in every way possible. Broke, battered and failing to connect to his party’s base, either personally or on the issues. “Let McCain be McCain” became the battle cry. And that is largely what happened. The candidate ditched his top-heavy, front-runner strategy, jumped back onto the “Straight Talk Express” and hit the town hall circuit in New Hampshire with renewed vigor.

The string of victories that began in the Granite State and culminated with McCain as the presumptive nominee was one of the great comeback stories in modern political history. But a candidate who rode to victory with an on-the-fly style is finding that running a national general election campaign requires something quite different.

That reality was recognized yesterday when the campaign confirmed that it was shaking up its top leadership. Longtime McCain adviser Rick Davis is out as the day-to-day manager of scheduling, message and organization and veteran campaign operative Steve Schmidt, who has been with McCain throughout the campaign, is in.

According to most reports, the changes are one part cosmetic and three parts mechanical. Republicans outside of the campaign have grown increasingly concerned that McCain failed to capitalize on the breathing space he was given while the Democrats slugged it out long after he had wrapped up the nomination.

Those worries were exacerbated by the inability of the campaign to push forward a coherent and consistent message, according to reports in recent weeks. And the structure of the campaign has been criticized for lacking clear lines of communication and authority, alienating key constituencies, state party organizations and others who felt shut out. According to CBS News reporting, Schmidt will begin restructuring the campaign in major ways to rectify those problems.

It all may soothe nervous Republican nerves -- at least temporarily. Certainly campaign adjustments are nothing new in presidential politics and this “shakeup” leaves intact all those advisers who have surrounded McCain throughout this race, albeit in different roles.

But will a return to script help the candidate in the long run? When he kicked off his effort, McCain took on all the trappings of a front-runner. He hired a large campaign staff, gobbled up advisers and consultants, raised boatloads of money and sent the message that this was his turn.

For a “maverick,” the structure didn’t work. It may be necessary for him to return to a more organized, disciplined regimental campaign as he heads into the fall. But will it be at the cost of jettisoning the style which got him here in the first place – letting McCain be McCain?

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