The past couple of weeks haven’t been kind to John McCain’s presidential campaign. He not only was the only GOP presidential hopeful to snub the Conservative Political Action Conference, he fared poorly in the CPAC straw-poll (he came in fifth) and his name was widely booed when mentioned. This comes as McCain’s Letterman announcement was flubbed and his standing in the polls is faltering.
Suddenly, the Republican frontrunner has lost the air of inevitability. According to a report in Radar magazine, it’s reached the point at which McCain staffers are already jumping ship.
John McCain’s Obama-esque remarks about our “wasted” resources in Iraq weren’t the only comments that landed him in hot water after a recent appearance on Late Night with David Letterman. Many of his staff were blindsided by his campaign announcement. And several aides were so outraged that they’ve quit, say Republican insiders.
“They’re imploding — he had a game plan that had him announcing much later in the year,” one top Republican aide tells Radar, adding that the campaign is “in serious trouble … Romney’s plan and Rudy’s jump in the polls caused him to scrap his plans completely. When you do that, and you’re not prepared for it, the staff goes crazy. Some of his coordinators in different states were pulling their hair out!”
Another insider, a guru to the conservative movement, says that McCain himself is growing increasingly desperate in the wake of his downward slide in the polls — a slip hastened by his steadfast support of the very man who savaged him and his family during the 2000 election, George W. Bush, and the president’s unpopular plan for troop surge in Iraq. “One of the top aides to the Republican leadership told me that McCain has lost so much support, he’s simply beside himself. He’s wringing his hands. Things are sinking fast — in two or three weeks, we’ll know if there is any recovery.”
Now, it’s worth taking all of this with a grain of salt. Radar’s piece hasn’t been corroborated by other outlets, and if “several aides” had quit, one assumes word would get out fairly quickly. What’s more, Radar’s sources are all anonymous.
But it could be true, couldn’t it?
Radar noted that “many of his staff were blindsided by his campaign announcement.” That’s certainly plausible.
In yet another indication that the McCain folks need to find a new Internet guy, this e-mail was kind of a bonehead move. A message sent at 9pm announcing a TV appearance at 11pm is going to miss a lot of people. Even those on the left coast are leaving work by 6pm and probably missed the missive.
This is a message that should have been sent this morning to drum up media interest in the announcement, as well as supporter interest in watching. A staggering majority of the people on his list probably won’t see this until tomorrow, and it will be too late to catch the event.
As for CPAC, every Republican hopeful coordinated with conference organizers to host private receptions at the event. McCain turned down an invitation to speak, and then, at the 11th hour, tried to set up his own reception without CPAC’s help. By that point, there was no room, and McCain was out of luck. It reflects poor planning and last-minute decision-making, which are hardly the hallmarks of a disciplined campaign.
Kevin Drum said McCain staffers quitting “sounds true,” but “that’s more because it tickles me to think so than because there’s any real evidence for it.”
Agreed. I’m not inclined to embrace this as actual “news,” but I just like the idea of McCain’s team being in disarray.