Sen. John Kerry is angry at the way his campaign has botched the attacks from the Swift boat veterans and has ordered a staff shakeup that will put former Clinton aides in top positions.
"The candidate is furious," a longtime senior Kerry adviser told the Daily News. "He knows the campaign was wrong. He wanted to go after the Swift boat attacks, but his top aides said no."
Campaign sources stressed that no one is losing a job at this point, but instead "proven winners" like former Clinton aides Joe Lockhart and Joel Johnson are being brought in to try to regain momentum for Team Kerry.
Many Democrats have suggested that an overhaul of the Kerry "message machine" is seriously overdue.
Johnson is now running Kerry's war room, and Lockhart will be both a spokesman and strategist.
"Nobody is going over the side, but some people's stock has gone through the floor," a source said.
Democratic insiders have been saying for weeks that communications director Stephanie Cutter and media consultant and strategist Bob Shrum are two top aides who need to be replaced.
But a second Democratic source noted, "The question is, Is it too late? Has too much blood spilled?”