McCain campaign set to make cutbacks in staff

Looks like things aren’t going too well for the ‘maverick’ Republican from Arizona’s campaign, especially lately:

John McCain’s campaign, trailing top Republican rivals in money and polls, is undergoing a significant reorganization with staff cuts in every department, officials with knowledge of the shake-up said Monday.

Some 50 staffers or more are being let go, and senior aides will be subject to pay cuts as the Arizona senator’s campaign bows to the reality of six months of subpar fundraising, these officials said.

They spoke on condition of anonymity because the plans have not been made public. An afternoon conference call was scheduled to announce the results of second-quarter fundraising.

Once considered the front-runner for the GOP nomination, McCain came in third in the money chase behind Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani, raising $13.6 million in the first three months of the year. He is struggling to reach that total in the second financial quarter, and wasn’t expected to match it.

I honestly don’t know what made McCain jump into the 2008 presidential race in the first place, especially considering that he has to know that he’s extremely unpopular with Republicans on the issues of immigration reform, campaign finance reform, and a whole host of other issues. Maybe he thought just because enough people like him in Arizona to keep re-electing him that it would be the same nationwide? I don’t know.

I remember back in 2003 when Kerry was polling badly and Dean looked like ‘the one’, I was saying to myself that Kerry really needed to drop out, because his campaign was going nowhere. Obviously, I was wrong about that, but I feel like I can say with certainty (and this is obviously not going out on a limb by any stretch) that the fat lady is singing in McCain’s campaign, and he should do himself a favor and step out of it gracefully, because he will not win the nomination – he won’t even come close.

Cross-posted at Right Wing News