Team Forms New Plan for New Fight

McCain aides are beginning to draft a new general election document that will attempt to balance the need for a bigger national operation with McCain's desire to maintain the small, nimble campaign organization that helped him succeed.

"We have decided to continue to be the ragtag group of volunteers running on fumes," Black said jokingly. For the moment, he and McCain's other aides are playing coy. Davis wasn't "inclined to talk about the general election strategy" until McCain has secured the nomination, a spokeswoman said.

There are no such restrictions on McCain's efforts to expand his fundraising team. Last week, he named former Bush national finance chairman Mercer Reynolds to lead his money-raising team. Scooter Clippard, the former fundraising chairman for Fred D. Thompson, will serve as a co-chairman for McCain.

Aides said the McCain team is successfully reaching out to other top donors and bundlers for his former rivals, but they declined to provide names.

Revamping fundraising operations could be critical for McCain, who struggled financially through most of last year while Obama and Clinton broke records. McCain has said he would accept public financing if he becomes the nominee, a decision that would provide him with $85 million from the Treasury.

At the campaign event in Oshkosh on Friday, McCain assailed Obama for saying he might withdraw what McCain called a pledge to accept public financing if he becomes the nominee. On Thursday, Obama spokesman Bill Burton said that Obama had never made such a pledge and that accepting public financing "was an option that we wanted on the table."

"I expect Senator Obama to keep his word to the American people," McCain said. "If Senator Obama goes back on his commitment to the American people, then obviously we have to rethink our position."

Staff writer Perry Bacon Jr. contributed to this report.