McCain Challenge Falters As Top Aides Quit

The US senator John McCain today was struggling to keep his White House bid alive after the resignations of his closest aide and other top advisers.

Mr McCain, who mounted a strong challenge for the Republican nomination in the 2000 presidential race, lost his chief strategist and long-time adviser, John Weaver, and his campaign manager, Terry Nelson, in the latest blow to a faltering effort.

Other senior aides also went, including the deputy campaign manager, Reed Galen, the political director, Rob Jesmer, and the finance director, Mary Kate Johnson.

The decorated Vietnam war veteran has already had to lay off more than half of his original campaign staff of 150 as financial contributions have dried up. Once the favourite to win the Republican nomination, Mr McCain has seen his poll ratings slump mainly because of his strong support for President George Bush on the Iraq war.

Mr McCain restated his support for Mr Bush's "surge" strategy in a speech in the Senate yesterday, saying the US military was "making progress". The Arizona senator, who has just returned from Iraq, plans to give another speech on the war in New Hampshire on Friday.

Apart from Iraq, Mr McCain, who has never shied from controversial issues, has also lost support by backing the president's legislation to grant eventual citizenship to millions of illegal immigrants - a measure that split the Republican party.

"My friends, it's no secret that we have faced many challenges in this campaign," Mr McCain told supporters in an email. "But I continue to do my best to make you proud, by standing on principle and doing the tough things necessary to make our nation proud and strong - it's the only way I know how."

Mr McCain's support is in the single digits in some surveys in Iowa and South Carolina, trailing Rudolf Giuliani, the former New York mayor, Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, and Fred Thompson, the actor and former Tennessee senator who has not even officially entered the race.