Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/analysts-discuss-mccain-campaigns-woes Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Transcript The presidential campaign of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., has suffered some setbacks over the last few weeks with a low second-quarter fund-raising performance and the resignation of two top strategists. Two political reporters assess the state of the campaign. Read the Full Transcript Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors. JIM LEHRER: Next, the troubles of the John McCain presidential campaign, and to Gwen Ifill. GWEN IFILL: It wasn't long ago that Republican presidential candidate John McCain looked unbeatable. He had $24 million in the bank, a sleek and shiny new campaign bus, and more than 100 paid staffers working around the country.By last week — with the candidate laboring under the weight of two unpopular issues, Iraq and immigration — that bank account had dwindled to under $2 million and the staff was slashed. Yesterday, the campaign's top two strategists quit.What went wrong? And can McCain still reverse his political tailspin? For that, we turn to two reporters who have been covering the senator's reversal of fortune: Dan Balz, national political correspondent for the Washington Post; and Adam Nagourney, chief political correspondent for the New York Times.So, Dan, what happened? DAN BALZ, Political Reporter, Washington Post: Well, this is a continuing implosion in the McCain campaign, Gwen. It's a remarkable story; it has been for months. He's had one series of problems after another, but what happened yesterday was, I think, most remarkable of all.To lose his campaign manager and his chief strategist in one day is an extraordinary admission of the problems in the campaign, and particularly the departure of John Weaver, his senior strategist. This is a person who is as close to McCain as any other person in that campaign.There was a confrontation over the management of the campaign. Terry Nelson, the campaign manager, and John Weaver essentially objected to what Senator McCain was suggesting, which was to switch out Terry Nelson for a new campaign manager. They, in essence, called his bluff. McCain said, "OK," and they resigned. And it leaves the campaign in turmoil at a very, very difficult moment, Gwen. GWEN IFILL: Adam, those were the internal factors that Dan was talking about. What were the external factors? ADAM NAGOURNEY, Chief Political Correspondent, New York Times: Well, the external factors was that the — two, financial and issues. On financial, the McCain campaign was raising far less money than it had expected for a whole lot of reasons. They had expected to raise about $100 million, $120 million this year. As you said before, they only raised $24 million so far.At the same time, they were spending as if they were raising that much money. So they were spending money all over the place. I think, at one point, they had 150 people on payroll. There was a period a couple of weeks ago when Senator McCain asked for a report of what was going on and learned that they were almost out of money. They were essentially broke right now, for all intents and purposes.So the financial part's one part. The other part is the issues. I mean, McCain is out of step with a lot of Republican primary voters on the issue of immigration, which happened to come to a fore here in Washington at the very moment that he was trying to raise money and build support across the country. And in Iowa, for example, internal polls by Republicans show his support plummeting as he became increasingly identified with the immigration bill. Everything is going wrong at the wrong time for him.