DANCE WITH WHAT BRUNG YA:

McCain rolls out leaner campaign in New Hampshire: He says he can outcampaign those with more funds (MICHAEL COOPER, 7/15/07, Associated Press)

Without much money, or a private jet or even one of his trademark campaign buses, Sen. John McCain brought his newly stripped-down campaign to an American Legion post here on Saturday and stood in a stifling hot room for an hour and a half fielding questions from voters like Frank Fahey.

Fahey, a 64-year-old retired teacher who is a registered Republican, told McCain that he was "an American hero" who received his vote in the state Republican presidential primary in 2000. But he wanted to know about the perception that McCain had become too close to President Bush since then. And what, he asked McCain, about those pundits who "pretty much sang the death knell of the McCain campaign" on television last week?

McCain looked out at the crowd and said: "Look, I have had tough times in my life. This is a day at the beach compared with some others."

It was the kind of one-on-one exchange that McCain and his aides say will have to dominate his campaign for president now that it has spent most of the $24 million it has raised.

Two of his top strategists quit in the past week, scores of workers were laid off and McCain has gone from presumed front-runner to underdog. Now the campaign is being pared down. Staff members were just asked to turn in their parking passes, and the campaign is considering a move from its Virginia headquarters to a cheaper space.

Now, he said, he will focus on just three states: New Hampshire, Iowa and South Carolina. It is a return to the kind of lean insurgent's campaign that he ran in 2000, say the aides who are left

For New Image, McCain Looks to His Past (Dan Balz, 7/15/07, Washington Post)

"Look, we're going to be fine," he said. "I know how to campaign. I can win in New Hampshire, as I did in 2000. I never was going to rely on money to win this campaign. I'm not a very good fundraiser. I'll admit it. But I can out-campaign any of these guys, and I will and I can and we'll do just fine -- here, in Iowa and in South Carolina."

He was planning to rely on money, as the initial budget projections from his campaign now testify. He expected to raise and spend $154 million, then revised that to $137 million, then $120 million. But he was right about another thing -- he did not turn out to be much of a fundraiser. Now he is reduced to what has long been his essence -- grit, determination, a willingness to say what he thinks and the exhilaration that comes with being an underdog.

The Senator just needed to look to his own experience and past his CFR rhetoric--money isn't important. In America you win when you run as an insurgent outsider, no matter how far inside the Beltway you really are.

Posted by Orrin Judd at July 15, 2007 12:00 AM