Romney cuts coach

Mitt’s campaign staff severs ties with former Liberty debate coach

Former Liberty University debate coach Brett O’Donnell made headlines nationwide for his recent split as a temporary outside consultant for Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign.

The incident came about after the Republican presidential primary in Florida on Jan. 31, turning a lead in the polls for the presidential hopeful.

“It’s not uncommon for consultants, which is really what Brett O’Donnell is, to work for someone on a temporary basis to provide a specialty and move on past that,” Liberty senior Zach Martin said. Martin, a campaign manager for Councilman Jeff Helgeson, had a year of debate experience under O’Donnell. He has worked on 12 campaigns and currently works for Sen. Steve Newman.

There has been debate amongst the media as to the exact cause of the split between O’Donnell and the Romney Campaign.

According to the political website Politico, there was “discomfort” amongst campaign workers concerning the media’s perception of O’Donnell’s importance to the campaign.

“Sometimes (politicians) hire people like O’Donnell, who has a lot of expertise, to come in and make a few brief comments or to critique something,” Martin said.

O’Donnell worked at Liberty from the fall of 1988 until his resignation in 2006 to help with the McCain campaign, according to Liberty’s Director of Debate Michael Hall.

“The type of skill sets (O’Donnell) uses for the debates are the same he used to teach his students (at Liberty). I think there’s a very direct relationship between what he learned here at Liberty — and the skills he taught our students here — and what he’s doing now for political candidates,” Hall said.

In addition to being an outside consultant for Romney’s campaign, O’Donnell has worked as an advisor for the McCain 2008 presidential election and, more recently, as an advisor for Bachmann before her withdrawal from the race.

“Even now (O’Donnell) is a huge fan of (Liberty’s) debate, and he still stays in contact with us. He will meet us at tournaments if we’re in the D.C. area and sees the team and how they’re doing,” Hall said. “And I think that the neatest part is to see someone who goes and does what he does and works with presidential candidates … and he still is very much part of the (Liberty) family as an alumnus and I think that speaks highly of him.”

According to Hall, the type of debate the university teaches and that O’Donnell uses is called policy debate. The work that goes into one year of research for this kind of debate is similar to that of a doctoral dissertation. Additionally, O’Donnell knows his political process and public policy.

“With the work he has already done and how good he is at that sort of work, I would be surprised if he wasn’t working for political campaigns in the future,” Hall said.

O’Donnell did not wish to comment on the incident.