A closer look at McCain's fundraising miss

Many people were surprised by Sen. McCain's low first quarter fundraising numbers. But as Jill Lawrence at the USA Today reports: they didn't do enough asking.

The numbers bear that out. McCain had 31 fundraising events in the first quarter and raised $12.5 million. Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani had 57 fundraisers, 36 of them in March, and raised $15 million.

Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney - the Republicans' first-place finisher in the first quarter with $23 million - spent 33 days in February and March raising money. Some days his schedule had several events. Romney raised more than $6.5 million on Jan. 9, when he assembled 400 well-connected supporters to make calls from the Boston convention center.

The McCain campaign "saw this coming" and restructured, chief strategist John Weaver says. He says the pace set in March - 27 events - will continue, and a new finance chief, Texan and former Bush fundraiser Tom Loeffler, will oversee expanded fundraising with better tracking of progress.Weaver said McCain's total of 60,000 donors is evidence that "there was no political problem. It was a structural problem."

It seems a little too early to be restructuring your fundraising chief out of his job. In fact, the last time I heard a candidate complain about low fundraising because they started too late... and then shook up the fundraising staff... well... it was Bob Graham and he dropped out of the Presidential Primary race shortly thereafter.