Who's behind it all?

We have all seen movies like The American President that show the interactions between the president and his closest advisors. There are often disagreements, advice from one side on what to do, and a disregard of the advice from teh president. I have often wondered what this relationship looks like in reality. Who is actually making the tactical decisions and directing the campaign (or administartion)? The LA Times gave readers a glimpse of the man behind the scenes for John McCain. It raises some questions as to who is responsible for certain choices (for example "Schmidt pressed McCain to pluck the Alaska governor from obscurity.Other than the candidates, no one in the operation has more riding on that decision than Schmidt. " "Under Schmidt, the campaign is a tightly run operation. Previously, McCain allowed reporters almost unfettered access. Under Schmidt, the candidate went 40 days without a news conference.") My next question is, even if the ideas don't belong to the candidate, should they still take sole responsibility? I think so.

While looking for additional info on Schmidt, I cam across a website called Source Watch. At first glance, it looks a lot like Wikipedia. It is "A project for the Center for Media and Democracy" and its tagline is "Your source for the names behind the news." An interesting resource.