IS McCAIN ON THE WAY OUT?

REPUBLICANS CANDIDATES SPENDING MORE THAN THEY ARE RAISING.

Just as George Bush came to the presidency with the huge surplus in the treasury and then frittered it away and turned it into a huge deficit, Republican candidates for the presidency are spending more than they are taking in. McCain took in $11.5 million and spent $13 million. His campaign fund is so low that he had to let scores of staffers go, and a handful of top campaign aides have quit. It doesn’t seem likely that he will be able to stay in the race very long.

Romney raised $14 million and spent $20.5 million. $5 million of that was for advertising. $300 was for makeup for the first debate. We wonder how much he spends on haircuts. He made up the deficit by lending the campaign $6.5 out of his own personal wealth. Guiliani is the only top Republican candidate who didn’t spent more than he took in.

The top Democrats, on the other hand, have brought in more than they spent. Obama has $32 million on hand for the primaries. Clinton has $21.5 million. Edwards is still firmly in the race with $13 million.

Democratic candidate Dr. Carl Perrin is still hanging in there. His fund raising is up. He now has $43.71 in his campaign treasury. That doesn’t count the returnable bottles that volunteers are collecting for him in Maine. Perrin hasn’t spent any money. He is saving it for a big swing through Maine in late August. He doesn’t have to let any staffers go because he doesn’t pay anyone. All of his staff are volunteers. He doesn’t have to close down any campaign offices because he doesn’t have any. There is one family member who lets him use a phone number. No one answers it, but supporters can leave a message on the answer machine.

Unlike those Republicans who spent their money too soon, Perrin says he is sitting pretty. When the time comes, he will be ready to put his campaign into high gear.

IS McCAIN IN TROUBLE?

REPUBLICAN FUND RAISING

Several Republican candidates for the presidency have revealed their fund-raising numbers for the second quarter. Rudy Guiliani leads this race with $17 million. Mitt Romney is next with $14 million.

The Republicans are trailing Democrats in fund raising. The top three Republicans (Guiliani, Romney, and McCain) raised a total of $49 million in the second quarter. That compares with $69 million for the top three Democrats (Obama, Clinton, and Edwards). The top Democratic fund raiser, Barack Obama, raised nearly twice as much money as Guiliani, $32.5 million to $17 million.

The really big news here, though, is that John McCain is really hurting. His campaign collected much less than expected, less even than he raised during the first quarter. He has only $2 million in the bank to fund his campaign. Because of this, he is going to skip the influential Iowa straw poll, and he is cutting his campaign staff way back, from 120 to 40.

Democratic candidate Dr Carl Perrin of course collected even less campaign money than McCain, but Perrin is still in good shape. He wasn’t planning to enter the Iowa race anyway, and he won’t have to cut back on his campaign staff because he doesn’t have one. Incredible as it seems, Perrin is running his own campaign, answering the phone, writing campaign literature, and all that stuff.

Of course Perrin has a lot of volunteers working for him. He said he doesn’t need campaign headquarters all around the country because he has lived in a lot of different states and has contacts who will be ready to help him when the time comes. He’s especially strong in Ocean County, New Jersey, and in Maine, where volunteers are collecting returnable bottles to help finance his campaign.