McCain campaign continues to stall

From The Washington Post:

Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign announced yesterday a wave of layoffs and a return to the kind of tactics the candidate employed in his first run for the White House, after reporting that the onetime GOP front-runner had failed to turn around his disappointing fundraising efforts.

Campaign manager Terry Nelson said in a conference call that the campaign has only $2 million in the bank after raising $11.2 million in the three-month period ending Saturday and that it will slash staffers' salaries, in addition to the layoffs. Nelson said that to help trim costs, he will no longer accept a salary for his work on the campaign. Sources inside the campaign said at least half the staff is being eliminated, on top of cuts made after the first quarter -- a level of reductions unheard of this early in a race.

Making an appeal to McCain to withdraw from the race for the good of the Republican Party would be useless since he has never given a damn about what was good for the Party before now. However even someone as delusional as McCain should be able to realize that it is over as far as his chances of gaining the nomination.

This leads me to speculate about his motives. It is possible that he is even more disconnected from reality than I had previously thought. He might honestly think that things are just on the verge of turning around as the people finally wake up to their need for him.

It is also possible, and probably more likely, that this is all some kind of attempt to seek revenge against the Republican Party for rejecting him. By staying in the race he can participate in any debates, have his campaign commercials aired and have his opinion sought by the press. In upcoming days this will give him a platfor4m from which to launch attacks on the other Republican candidates.

In this way he could attempt to influence the outcome of the primary race by harming the candidate who he believes would have the best chance of winning the general election and thus helping to ensure that Hillary Clinton is the next president. He could even go the third party route and mount an independent campaign in the same way the Ross Perot did, and with the same result of putting a Clinton in the White House.

Or it could be that McCain's ego and pride simply won't allow him to admit defeat. Or perhaps he is waiting for a benchmark date to withdraw figuring that if he holds out till that date that honor will have been served.

Whatever his motivations he is not doing his party any good, but as I said before that has never bothered him in the past. What he should consider is that every time he falls short of a fundraising goal and has to scale back his campaign; every time he drops in the polls - he will Soon be trailing the third tier candidates like Hunter, Tancredo and Paul - he diminishes himself.

If the man doesn't soon return to the Senate, where he still retains some stature, he will soon become too small to see with the naked eye.