DES MOINES, Iowa - John McCain's campaign is losing two veteran Republican strategists in Iowa and will report a seven-figure debt for the second quarter in a row, back-to-back blows to a presidential bid still reeling from a major staff shake-up earlier this week.
Ed Failor Jr., said Thursday that he and Karen Slifka plan to notify McCain by letter of their decisions to leave. Both are GOP operatives with deep ties in Iowa, which holds the first-in-the-nation caucuses, and national politics.
"As much as I like Senator McCain, it's not a team I'm willing to stay involved with any longer," Failor said.
The campaign also will show about $1 million in debts when it reports its second-quarter finances this weekend, according to a Republican familiar with the campaign's fundraising. The figure is smaller than the $1.8 million in the red that the campaign reported after the first three months of the year. McCain aides would not comment on the campaign's debt.
It appears that the McCain Straight Talk Express is sinking faster than the Titanic. We've already seen how the McCain campaign cut their campaign staff down by at least 50 staffers after the campaign raised a poor $11.2 million in the second quarter. In one sense, it is like everything that can go wrong for the McCain campaign has gone wrong.
Which brings us to our second MSNBC story, titled McCain accepts blame for campaign woes:
CONCORD, N.H. - Republican John McCain said Friday he was to blame for the weakened state of his presidential campaign that has undergone two major staff shake-ups in a week and is nearly broke.
"We've made mistakes," the Arizona senator said during an interview with New Hampshire Public Radio. "The responsibility is mine. I'm the candidate."
Four days after accepting the resignations of his two top campaign aides, McCain said he didn't do what was necessary to run a productive campaign and spent just as much as he brought in when he should have been saving up to pay for costly television advertisements for the heat of race.
"We didn't use the money in the most effective way," he said.
McCain made the comments in the first-in-the-nation primary state as finger-pointing among his loyalists intensified in Washington over who was to blame for the one-time GOP front-runner's six-month slide and financially fragile condition.
The campaign raised $25 million in the first half of the year, but blew through nearly all of it during the same period. By Sunday, the campaign will report to the Federal Election Commission that it has $2 million cash on hand but more than $1 million in outstanding debt, according to officials. They say McCain could end up having as little as a couple hundred thousand dollars to spend as he tries to revitalize his campaign.
As July began, McCain laid off more than half of his staff and cut salaries of many of those remaining staffers to try to control costs. A week later, campaign manager Terry Nelson and chief strategist John Weaver resigned and several other senior aides loyal to the two followed them out the door. More are expected to leave in the coming days.
McCain named the chief executive officer, Rick Davis, as his campaign manager as he seeks to right his deeply troubled campaign.
"It's difficult times right now," McCain said but again vowed to press on with his second presidential bid.
The big problem for McCain now is that he has got to keep the donations coming in. He has got to keep the doners contributing money into his campaign, even as the bad news continues to mount of McCain staffers leaving, or being fired, or the continually dwindling dollar amount in campaign's bank account. If Republicans feel that John McCain cannot revitalize his campaign, they are going to look at the other contenders--which could include former senator Fred Thompson, who is still playing hard-to-get for the GOP. Senator John McCain could find himself out of the race even before the Iowa caucus begins.
No comments:
Post a Comment