ASHINGTON - George W. Bush is broadening his circle of campaign advisers to include former supporters of his father and officials once aligned with former rival John McCain.
One political veteran, former defense secretary Dick Cheney, could be tapped to head the Texas governor's search for a running mate, Republican officials said yesterday. Cheney was unavailable for comment yesterday.
Bush's entreaty to establishment Republicans will not change campaign decision-making, said a senior adviser to the governor. The campaign will remain based in Austin, Texas, and continue to be steered by top aides who have been with Bush since his first gubernatorial campaign in 1994: Karl Rove, Karen Hughes, and Joe Allbaugh.
The advisory group of more than two dozen volunteers will contribute ideas and suggestions on everything from the Republican National Convention this summer to Vice President Al Gore's vulnerabilities. The members include a trio McCain advisers: campaign manager Rick Davis and Republican veterans Vin Weber and Kenneth Duberstein.
The group also includes Mary Matalin, deputy manager of the senior Bush's 1992 campaign; Charles Black, who advised the White House bids of Bob Dole and Phil Gramm; former Republican National Committee chairman Haley Barbour, and former representative Bill Paxon of New York,
''It's a way of structuring it so we meet in groups and organize our advice,'' Black said yesterday.
The formalization of the group follows talk that the campaign was being run by advisers not tested by national politics. Such criticism is commonly leveled at presidential campaigns by members of a party's establishment who are not consulted.
This week, former House speaker Newt Gingrich took the criticism of Bush public, complaining that Bush's team ''still has a little bit of Austin in their style'' and is ''not quite up to speed yet'' in running a national campaign.
Black said Rove had been talking about formalizing an advisory group of establishment Republicans for three weeks, long before Gingrich publicly complained.
Bringing in Cheney to steer the vice-presidential search would give the campaign a large dose of experience. Cheney, now chief executive officer of Halliburton Co., a Dallas-based engineering and construction company, also President Ford as chief of staff. Before that, he was a Republican congressman from Wyoming.
Similarly, Gore's running-mate search is headed by Warren Christopher, who helped President Clinton choose his first Cabinet and then served as secretary of state.
Speculation on Bush's prospective running mates has focused on a number of Republican governors and McCain. Other possibilities include former presidential rival Elizabeth Dole.
