CARTAGENA, Colombia (AFP) — US Republican presidential hopeful John McCain shook up his campaign brain trust Wednesday, on the second day of a two-nation Latin America tour designed to showcase his foreign policy spurs.
The Arizona senator put his senior advisor Steve Schmidt, a hard-hitting political operative, in charge of day-to-day operations, amid reports of some Republican disquiet about McCain's White House bid, a campaign source told AFP.
Existing campaign manager Rick Davis will take on a broader role, overseeing tasks such as the selection of a vice presidential running mate for McCain and the planning of the Republican national convention in September.
The shake-up came just weeks into the evolving general election campaign between McCain and Senator Barack Obama, with the Democrat enjoying a six-percent lead over McCain in a RealClearPolitics average of national polls.
McCain's personnel shifts were made public on the middle day of the candidate's three-day tour of Colombia and Mexico.
His visit coincided with a daring jungle rescue by Colombian armed forces, who freed French-Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt, three US nationals and 11 Colombian soldiers from Marxist FARC rebels.
McCain revealed that he was informed in advance of the raid during talks with President Alvaro Uribe on Tuesday.
"I'm pleased with the success of this very high-risk operation. Sometimes in the past, the FARC has killed the hostages rather than let them be rescued," McCain said in a statement.
Earlier, McCain praised Uribe's battle against the FARC, and backed a US-Colombia free-trade pact proposal, which his rival Obama opposes.
"I think the people of Colombia should be rewarded for their sacrifices and their efforts but most important I think it's good for the interests in every way of the United States of America," McCain said.
Democrats in Congress are holding up the pact, citing Colombian government violence against trade unions. Democrats and trade unionists on Wednesday accused McCain of helping big business at the expense of US workers.
Mark Levinson, chief economist of the Unite Here trade union, said McCain should worry more about the plight of US workers than new trade pacts.
"It is clear that whatever he is doing, it is not in the interests of US workers," he said.
"The situation with the Colombia trade agreement is a particular outrage. There are more trade unionists killed in Colombia than the rest of the world combined," he added.
"While John McCain is in Colombia, Senator Obama is in Ohio, ground zero of the effect of these bad trade deals in the US economy."
McCain earlier also waded into the debate about halting the lucrative flow of illegal drugs into the voracious US market.
"Drug cartels have basically taken control of some towns on the Mexican border," McCain told ABC News Wednesday, speaking from the Colombian seaside resort of Cartagena.
"There is clearly a continued threat of drugs pouring into the United States of America, which can harm us and our young people very badly."
McCain was due to hold talks on Thursday with President Felipe Calderon of Mexico, the recipient of fresh US aid for its fight against drugs.
The US Senate last week approved a 1.6-billion-dollar, three-year package of anti-drug assistance to Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean known as the "Merida Initiative."
An underworld war between rival drug gangs and police has escalated into open bloody conflict in Mexico in recent weeks, with more than 1,500 people killed this year, some 500 of them in the northern border city of Ciudad Juarez alone.
McCain was accompanied on his trip by his wife Cindy McCain, independent Senator Joseph Lieberman and Republican Senator Lindsey Graham.
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