Jackie Calmes at the WSJ [1]is reporting:
WASHINGTON — Sen. John McCain’s media team has resigned, an indication that a campaign shake-up two weeks ago is continuing to backfire and further imperil the Arizona Republican’s presidential candidacy.
Political ad-makers Russ Schriefer and Stuart Stevens, veterans of President Bush’s 2000 and 2004 campaigns, on Monday emailed the new campaign manager — lobbyist and longtime McCain adviser Rick Davis — to say that they were quitting. The two men told friends they had considered leaving for days, as they hadn’t been paid and the campaign’s financial straits raised questions of when and how much they would be.
Their resignations followed a story in The Wall Street Journal Monday [2] about Mr. Davis’s business and lobbying activities. Current and former McCain campaign advisers say those activities — which involved a business he started and another launched by an acquaintance of his — amounted to profiteering at the campaign’s expense and risked embarrassing the senator.
Yeah, well, it’s still embarrassing the senator. … Assuming he’s even aware of it, even now, which seems an open question. I mean, how much of this stuff can go on, and still maintain McCain a margin of plausible deniability, without the average person drawing the conclusion that McCain is a complete idiot?
There are some that I’ve discussed this matter with who think that threshold has already been crossed.
I found Drudge’s [3] choice of headline amusing:
McCain’s Media Team Resigns; Further Shaking Up Campaign…
Eventually, there’s nothing left to shake it up.
And…. look… Let’s be honest, here, and call this what it is; McCain is hanging on long enough, until such time as he manages to get Federal matching funds to pay some of the bills he’s had hanging over his head for several months now. Such as the aforementioned paychecks, for example. Once that hurdle is crossed, he’ll drop the campaign.