McCain's Cash Crunch

By KAREN TUMULTY

It wasn't so long ago that the candidate who appeared to have laid out a straightforward path for himself to reach the 2008 Republican nomination was John McCain. With the Republican establishment climbing aboard the Straight Talk Express, his campaign budgeted for a $100 million race, in which it would hire all the party's top talent and contend vigorously across the map.

Now, having posted a second lackluster fund-raising quarter and with only $2 million in the bank, the once presumptive front runner's campaign finds itself struggling to survive. The operation is laying off staffers by the dozen and slashing the salaries of those who are left. Campaign manager Terry Nelson is working without pay. The campaign is narrowly refocusing itself on the early states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina--though the fact that McCain is cutting back his field operations in those states will make the challenge steeper. He is also considering accepting presidential matching funds, a move that could give him $6 million in much needed funds but also require him to become the only big name in the GOP field to agree to live under the campaign finance law's spending limits.

McCain's gamble is that he can recast his candidacy as the insurgency it was in 2000. But that could be hard to do in 2007, considering how his unwavering pro-Iraq-war stance has put him at odds with the independent voters who once found him so appealing, and his support for the now failed immigration bill has added a fresh reason for the party's conservative base to mistrust him.

If there is any opportunity for McCain, it lies in the fact that, although Republican primaries often turn into coronations, none of the other GOP contenders have caught fire with voters. "This is a volatile election," says McCain's chief strategist, John Weaver. For now, that instability may be McCain's best hope.