Senator McCain was once the front-runner in the race for the 2008 GOP nomination. Lately his numbers have been on a preciptious slide and Rudy has taken over the lead. Many on the right fear his numbers aren't going to stop dropping and in turn, it seems that his staffers are beginning to jump ship. Sources say that his early pre-announcement announcement and the tank in the polls is to blame.
From Radar Online:
John McCain's Obama-esque remarks about our "wasted" resources in Iraq weren't the only comments that landed him in hot water after a recent appearance on Late Night with David Letterman. Many of his staff were blindsided by his campaign announcement. And several aides were so outraged that they've quit, say Republican insiders."They're imploding—he had a game plan that had him announcing much later in the year," one top Republican aide tells Radar, adding that the campaign is "in serious trouble ... Romney's plan and Rudy's jump in the polls caused him to scrap his plans completely. When you do that, and you're not prepared for it, the staff goes crazy. Some of his coordinators in different states were pulling their hair out!"
Another insider, a guru to the conservative movement, says that McCain himself is growing increasingly desperate in the wake of his downward slide in the polls—a slip hastened by his steadfast support of the very man who savaged him and his family during the 2000 election, George W. Bush, and the president's unpopular plan for troop surge in Iraq. "One of the top aides to the Republican leadership told me that McCain has lost so much support, he's simply beside himself. He's wringing his hands. Things are sinking fast—in two or three weeks, we'll know if there is any recovery."
With so much time between now and the primaries, we might not even see the Senator in the running when it is time for the Republican party to pick their nominee. It didn't help that he didn't show up for CPAC last week and he might have not shown up for fear that he would get a negative reaction. It turns out that the audience booed him when it was announced that he came in far behind many other front-runners in the CPAC straw poll. McCain has plenty of problems with conservatives and the religious right, especially his flip-flopping positions on the war and on important social issues like gay-marriage and intelligent design.
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