That seems to be the assessment from the Sunday Times:
THE former presidential front-runner, John McCain, may drop out of the 2008 race by September if his fundraising dries up and his poll ratings continue to drop, according to Republican insiders.
The speculation, vigorously denied by McCain’s camp, is sweeping Republican circles after a disastrous few weeks in which the principled Arizona senator has clashed with the party’s conservative base on immigration and also alienated independent voters by backing President George W Bush’s troop surge in Iraq
(…)
One veteran Republican consultant put the odds of McCain remaining in the race beyond the autumn at 3-1 against. “He’ll be gone by September,” predicted Tom Edmonds, who is not affiliated with any campaign.
“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.”
A poll by Rasmussen Reports last week showed McCain lying joint third with Mitt Romney, the Mormon former governor of Massachussetts, with the support of just 10% of Republican voters. This compared with 28% for Fred Thompson, the former Tennessee senator, and 27% for Rudy Giuliani, New York’s mayor at the time of the September 11 terrorist attacks.
Romney, of course, is doing very well with fundraising and the implication of that is that McCain could very well find himself in fourth place behind Thompson, Giuliani, and Romney within a month. If that happens, the campaign is as good as over before the first vote is cast.
More importantly, as Steven Taylor notes:
If it becomes the accepted wisdom in fund raising circles that McCain has no shot, then that perception will become reality.
As Taylor points out, the other candidates, most notably Giuliani have issues that could sour them with the conservative wing of the party, but with Romney doing well and Thompson coming in, it’s unclear that McCain would be the one to benefit if Rudy takes a tumble.
The McCain campaign could be fizzling out before the first primary.
Couldn’t happen to a more deserving person.
H/T: James Joyner
