At the same time, they say, the contract discouraged Mr. Reed, a prominent operative who was being courted by several other campaigns, from backing anyone other than Mr. Bush.
The leader of a notorious 1979 attack on an Israeli family -- who later became a prominent operative with the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah -- has been killed in an airstrike in Syria, according to official and media accounts Sunday.
It was a lack of operational security that, apparently, led to the death, late last week, of one of the most prominent operatives in the Taliban war.
As Mr. Weiner, the former congressman, prepares to roll out a long-shot bid for mayor, possibly as soon as next week, he is finding it difficult to attract prominent operatives, interviews suggest.
But a prominent Republican operative, Frank Luntz, said it matched the strategy his focus groups had dictated.
In 1987, the year he ran Mr. Janiszewski's winning campaign for county executive, Mr. Shaw formed a partnership with Frank X . Robinson another prominent Democratic operative who worked for years for Joseph V. Doria Jr., the former Bayonne mayor and former Assembly speaker, who was ousted as commissioner of community affairs after his office was raided on the day of Mr. Shaw's arrest.
In California, officials are probing alleged money laundering that might violate state election disclosure laws by a few groups, including one run by Sean Noble, a prominent Koch operative in Arizona.
John Edwards is adding two prominent Democratic operatives as senior advisers and shifting some responsibilities from his campaign manager, David Bonior.
Mr. Albanese also accused Ms. Quinn of adding at least two prominent labor operatives to her office shortly before announcing her mayoral candidacy.
And he said that Ms. Quinn had added at least two prominent labor operatives to her office shortly before announcing her candidacy, but that he could not say more about her hiring because her office had not responded to a request made March 18 under the state's Freedom of Information Law for a list of staff members, their dates of hire and their salaries.
United States Attorney Leura Canary is the wife of a prominent Republican political operative who was a strong opponent of Mr. Siegelman.
