Huckabee Staff Picks Underline New Focus on Fundraising

At Mike Huckabee’s presidential campaign headquarters just outside downtown Little Rock, Ark., the political team is stacked with veterans of his previous campaigns. His fundraising operation, however, is staffed with almost all new faces who are tasked with avoiding a repeat of Huckabee’s 2008 campaign, which went broke just as he was capturing the GOP’s imagination.

A staff roster, obtained by TIME, shows that of the headquarter’s 19 senior political aides, 12 are veterans of his Huckabee’s earlier efforts, including daughter-turned-campaign manager Sarah Huckabee Sanders. In the finance department, however, five of the six top officials are newcomers to Huckabee’s orbit.

Their resumes include stints working for the presidential campaigns of George W. Bush, Mitt Romney, John McCain, Rick Santorum, Michele Bachmann, Jon Huntsman and Tim Pawlenty.

Huckabee on Tuesday launched his campaign with a speech in his hometown of Hope, Ark., and signaled he would run a more-polished campaign than his 2008’s effort. An upstart eight years ago, Huckabee now is a known candidate whom voters will expect to run a more professional operation.

A look at Huckabee’s inner circle:

• Huckabee Sanders is her father’s top aide but hardly a nepotistic hire. In 2014, she managed John Boozman’s successful Senate campaign in Arkansas and was a top adviser to Tom Cotton’s winning campaign in North Carolina. She previously was an adviser to Pawlenty’s failed 2012 bid for the GOP nomination and guided her father’s 2008 campaign in Iowa to a win as his national political director.

• Huckabee’s 2008 campaign manager, Chip Saltsman, is returning to Huckabee’s fold as a senior adviser. The former chairman of the Tennessee GOP, he is a veteran of the political organizations run by Tennessee Sens. Bill Frist, Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker. He is a trusted hand and will be one of the campaign’s strongest unofficial spokesmen.

• Jordan Powell will be the deputy campaigner, coming from RedRight Strategies, a digital firm that he founded. A veteran on Huckabee’s 2008 bid, he also has worked for Rep. Chuck Fleischmann’s campaign in Tennessee and official congressional offices. His hire signals Huckabee is looking to make online efforts a priority.

• Longtime pollster and advertising maven Bob Wickers is reprising the role he had during Huckabee’s 2008 campaign. The California-based consultant was on-hand when Huckabee launched his campaign on Tuesday in Hope, Ark., and is expected to be a regular presence as Huckabee cases the nomination. He was a senior adviser to Romney’s 2012 bid.

• Helping Wickers will be his business partner Bryan Sanders. Married to the campaign manager, Sanders is also an experienced media consultant whose past clients have included Huckabee, Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley and Reps. Ted Yoho of Florida and French Hill of Arkansas.

• Jim Ferguson, who has made television ads for Sony, the NFL and McDonald’s, is the campaign’s creative director. He worked on Bush’s 2008 race and Romney’s 2012 bid.

• Miles Hargrove will be the campaign’s filmmaker, trading in the “Fast and the Furious” and “Harry Potter” credentials for scenes in Iowa and South Carolina.

• Jim Terry, a veteran of Capitol Hill, is running Huckabee’s outreach to elected officials and running the political department. A longtime campaign operative, Terry is one House Republicans’ go-to fixers on races that need an overhaul.

• Alice Stewart is reprising her role as Huckabee’s top communications aide. A former Emmy-winning television reporter, she was Huckabee’s press secretary in 2008 and was communications director for Rep. Michele Bachmann’s 2012 presidential bid and later Santorum’s. She will be Huckabee’s communications director, focused on strategy.

• J. Hogan Gidley is a longtime Huckabee adviser and another former television reporter. He will be a senior adviser to the candidate, for whom he ran HuckPAC, and previously was the executive director of the South Carolina GOP and communications director for Santorum. Friendly with reporters, he will continue to be one of Huckabee’s strongest advocates.

• Leading event planning will be Aaron Chang, who has done stints running a presidential inauguration, a G8 summit and game-day operations for the Washington Nationals.

Others in the political fold include Arkansas Lt. Gov. Tim Griffin, who is offering Huckabee assistance as his senior policy adviser. Chris Maiorana, a consultant to Santorum and Huntsman, is the campaign’s digital strategist and chief technology officer. Huckabee’s PAC chief Chadwick Gallagher, who first worked with Huckabee in 1992, will be a top aide.

And on the money side of things:

• Stacy DeJarnette is a senior adviser to the fundraising team. Of the six top fundraising aides in Huckabee’s orbit, she will be the only familiar face. She was his top finance aide in 2008, and has worked for McCain and Romney.

• Alice Tadlock, who was Rudy Giuliani’s California fundraiser for his 2008 bid and raised money for Romney, will coordinate operations in the finance department.

• Linus Catignani, a partner and co-founder of Maiorana’s firm, will help raise cash online. He is the former finance director at the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the GOP’s official Senate campaign arm, where he led a $120 million fundraising effort for 2002’s midterm elections. He has worked for Frist, Alexander and Sen. John Thune of South Dakota.

• Handling major donors and bundlers will Katy Faulk, a longtime fundraiser who founded her own firm in 2007. She is a former regional money chief for the Republican National Committee.

• Huckabee has tapped two regional finance directors, too. Cathy Lanier, a finance consultant who helped Romney’s campaign, most recently was the fundraising chief of Rep. French Hill of Arkansas. Jenna Recker will be the other regional fundraising chief; she is a former finance director for the Nebraska Republican Party and was a fundraiser for Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson’s campaign.