McCain could pull out of race by September, UK paper asserts RAW STORY

Published: Monday June 25, 2007 Print This Email This A Sunday report by one of Britain's best political reporters in Washington posits that Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) is on his last legs and may abandon his bid for the presidency as soon as September "if his fundraising dries up and his poll ratings continue to drop." McCain's staff vigorously denied the allegation. "He's a battler, so I'd expect him to carry on, but everyone is waiting to see what his new fundraising totals are," Arizona Republican Party Chairman Randy Pullen told the Sunday Times' Sarah Baxter. "That's pretty critical. If he doesn't have the money, he won't be able to run." Pullen also delivered another devastating blow, saying he believed that McCain could lose his home state of Arizona. "It looks to me like Arizona will be in play," Pullen said. "The immigration issue is clearly hurting him with the base of the party." The communications director of McCain's 2000 campaign told Baxter it's "possible" that he could drop out: "There are all sorts of challenges McCain is facing, from fundraising to Fred Thompson and the Iraq war, but the biggest single boulder in his path is the immigration issue." One veteran Republican consultant told the Sunday Times he thought the odds of McCain remaining in the race beyond autumn were 3-1 against. "He'll be gone by September," predicted Tom Edmonds. "The wheels are coming off his wagon and it's hard to see how he can recover. He won't be able to pay all the good talent he has hired and they'll want to drift away from a loser." Recent polls have McCain far behind the money he'd been able to raise early in the raise. A Rasmussen Reports poll last week, Baxter notes, showed McCain third behind Mitt Romney, the Mormon former Mass. governor, with just 10 percent of Republican voters; a second poll in Iowa, a crucial primary state, put McCain in fifth place behind Mike Huckabee with only six percent. A McCain insider gave the battle-tested quote of veteran campaign communications directors: "Reports of his death are greatly exaggerated. We're in the pre-campaign phase when everybody is trying hysterically to read the tea leaves, but after September the lights will go on and everybody will see that we've got a candidate who has stood before, doesn't need on-the-job training and has the resources to compete." Still, Baxter notes that McCain's political carapace could keep him in the race, even if he no longer stands a chance of winning. He could also face further trouble if newly registered independent Michael Bloomberg enters the fray. Read Baxter's Sunday Times report here.



