The chairman of John McCain’s presidential campaign says he "doesn’t believe" McCain will skip Iowa’s Caucuses. During the presidential race in 2000, McCain did not campaign in Iowa to spend his campaign cash in states, like New Hampshire, where he had a better shot at beating George Bush.
Now, with just a couple million dollars left in his campaign treasury, some national reports indicate McCain is again considering a skip Iowa strategy.
Dave Roederer, McCain’s Iowa campaign chairman, is offering a less-than-emphatic declaration. "There’s always possibilities of anything happening in this business, but I’m quite confident the senator will be participating in the Iowa Caucuses," Roederer says.
McCain cut his full-time Iowa campaign staff in half last week and Roederer says the people who still working for McCain remain on task. "A lot of this inside baseball stuff that goes on in Washington…happens in every campaign, but we are focused on getting supporters to the Caucuses come January or maybe December, whenever it’s determined those are going to be held," Roederer says.
McCain will return to Iowa "soon" according to Roederer and Roederer says McCain’s message won’t change just because of the new campaign reality he’s facing. "John McCain is John McCain and he has been very consistent," Roederer says. "…He says it the way he sees it and that will not change."
Roederer, a long-time insider on Iowa campaigns for Republican candidates, says changes in campaign are nothing new but in the end, "it always comes down to candidate and whether or not (voters) agree with the candidate."