John Weaver (political consultant)

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John Weaver is an American political consultant best known for his work on John McCain's 2000 and 2008 presidential campaigns. Weaver, described as one of McCain's "closest advisers" and "an architect of McCain's 'Straight Talk Express,'" left the McCain campaign in July 2007, along with campaign manager Terry Nelson, political director Rob Jesmer, and deputy campaign manager Reed Galen, following several consecutive months of poor fund-raising.^[1]

In 2004, Weaver appeared in the documentary film (based on the 2003 book of the same name) Bush's Brain: How Karl Rove Made George W. Bush Presidential, which alleges that Karl Rove, former campaign manager and Deputy White House Chief of Staff to President George W. Bush, was behind a South Carolina push poll during the 2000 Republican primary that used racist innuendo to undermine support for McCain by asking voters: "Would you be more likely or less likely to vote for John McCain for president if you knew he had fathered an illegitimate black child?"^[2] In the film, Weaver assigns blame to Rove, stating "I believe I know where that decision was made; it was at the top of the [Bush] campaign".

In 2008, Weaver made headlines within the Washington beltway during the McCain lobbyist controversy when some American media personalities speculated about his involvement in an article published by The New York Times that questioned the propriety of McCain's relationship with lobbyist Vicki Iseman. Weaver denied speaking to the paper without the campaign's approval.^[3]