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Posted: July 16, 2007 6:40 PM
National Press Team Joins McCain Campaign Exodus
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The bleeding of Arizona GOP Sen. John McCain’s campaign continued Monday as the senator’s national press team resigned in the wake of last week’s major campaign shake-up. Chris Cillizza of Washingtonpost.com writes that the departures were not a surprise. Press secretary Brian Jones and deputies Danny Diaz and Matt David were all loyal to Terry Nelson, who resigned as campaign manager last week. Jones likely will be replaced by Jill Hazelbaker, who is currently McCain’s New Hampshire press secretary.

Cillizza, along with Post reporters Michael Shear and Dan Balz analyzed the implosion of McCain’s campaign in an article on Saturday describing the clash between former chief strategist John Weaver and new campaign manager Rick Davis. Weaver told the reporters, “I should have resigned in December when this wasn’t settled.” For his part, Davis said in an interview that the fund-raising estimates for the campaign were taken directly from the Bush-Cheney budget in 2004 and were overly optimistic.

Weaver also gave an interview to New York magazine, in which he accepted responsibility for the campaign’s problems. He said, “we began the campaign believing our own B.S., and I’m very guilty of that.”

But perhaps the most pessimistic assessment of the campaign came from political analyst Charlie Cook, who said, “The physicians have left the room, and now it’s the executors of the will taking over. This isn’t about strategizing or organizing or messaging, it’s now about paying off the bills and sort of winding down.”

The candidate himself tried to put a positive spin on the campaign woes in an appearance over the weekend in New Hampshire, site of his surprising primary victory in 2000. Although he traveled to the Granite State on a commercial flight and kept the Straight Talk Express bus in the garage because of lack of funds, he told reporters that only a “fatal disease” would make him withdraw. And at a town hall in Claremont, he told the crowd, “We’re going to be fine. I know how to campaign. I can win in New Hampshire, as I did in 2000. I never was going to rely on money to win this campaign. I’m not a very good fund raiser. I’ll admit it. But I can out-campaign any of these guys.”

The New Hampshire Union Leader editorialized that “the only place Senator McCain can fight his way back is right here in New Hampshire, where he has the opportunity to win over voters one-on-one.”

McCain also used his trip to New Hampshire to renew his support for the war in Iraq, a position which reportedly has cost him dearly among independent voters. In a speech to the Concord Chamber of Commerce, the senator stated that “defeatism will not buy peace in our time. It will only lead to more bloodshed — and to more American casualties in the future. If we choose to lose in Iraq, our enemies will hit us harder in Afghanistan hoping to erode our political will and encourage calls in Western capitals for withdrawal and accommodation with our enemy there as well.”

McCain was in California for a town hall lunch in Santa Clara on Monday. Christians United For Israel announced that the senator would make a surprise appearance at its summit on Tuesday in Washington. Then, on Thursday, McCain is scheduled to travel to Tyler, Texas. He will likely spend most of the week in Washington as the Senate continues debate on the defense authorization bill.