Shaking Up Is Hard to Do

It probably wasn't his first choice, but John McCain got a new theme song yesterday for his floundering presidential campaign.

While reporters waited on hold for a teleconference announcing McCain '08's fundraising report, the calling center piped in "Just Once," the 1981 soul hit by Quincy Jones and James Ingram:

I did my best

But I guess my best wasn't good enough

'Cause here we are back where we were before

The senator from Arizona has to be wondering right about now whether his best will be good enough to keep him in the race for the Republican nomination. His campaign announced that it had burned through all but $2 million of the $24 million it has raised, resulting in pink slips for many, if not most, of the staff. It was so grim that the candidate opted to be in Iraq while his aides delivered the news.

Terry Nelson, McCain's campaign manager, cleared his throat. "We've worked through a number of challenges over the course of the last six months," he said, with cool understatement for a guy who had just agreed to work without salary to save the campaign money.

"At one point, we believed that we would raise over $100 million during this calendar year, and we constructed a campaign that was based on that assumption," Nelson acknowledged. "We believe today that that assumption is not correct."

And now, the onetime front-runner may resort to the political equivalent of food stamps. "The campaign is seriously considering accepting public matching funds," Nelson said.

Seriously?

"How do you run, at this point, a serious campaign?" asked The Washington Post's Dan Balz, reminding Nelson of the campaign's previous view that a candidate who stayed within the matching-fund system "would be crippled."

"We feel confident about our ability to wage this campaign," Nelson replied evenly. He reminded listeners of this confidence seven times during the 24-minute call.