Campaign Report Card for Obama and McCain

July 3, 2008— -- Presidential rivals John McCain and Barack Obama head into the summer political doldrums only a few points apart in the polls, but McCain's campaign still struggles with organizational problems.

McCain has reshuffled the top echelons of his staff for the second time, giving command of his day-to-day operations to the battle-tested GOP veteran Steve Schmidt. Schmidt will take over from Rick Davis, the man who rescued McCain's campaign from an embarrassing collapse during the primaries.

"This is a very big deal," ABC's chief Washington correspondent George Stephanopoulos said.

He said Schmidt's drill-sergeant, shaved-head style is needed to give the campaign a streamlined strategy for the national race.

The switch exposed Republican Party fears that McCain's campaign had stalled and failed to adjust from tactics needed to win a party primary to running a national election.

Despite the latest turmoil in the McCain camp, the party has been able to keep pace with Obama's operation, which has been turbo-charged this year by massive crowds and record-busting fundraising.

There has been little change in the polls in the weeks since Obama defeated his last Democratic challenger, Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York.. The lastest Gallup polls give Obama a slim 46-44 lead over McCain.

"It's actually very, very close," Stephanopoulos said.

Although not quite that close. Stephanopoulos reported that both camps believe Obama actually has a lead of five to eight percentage points. But Republicans are surprised that the Illinois senator's lead isn't bigger, because McCain is burdened by the unpopularity of President Bush and a sputtering economy.

Obama has raised three times as much money as the Arizona senator during the primary season, but "look at the month of May. ... John McCain raised only about $400,000 less than Barack Obama," Stephanopoulos said

Obama took in $21.9 million in May, while McCain raised $21.5 million. "This is likely to change" as Obama puts more efforts into his money-raising machinery, Stephanopoulos said

Stephanopoulos gave the candidates a report card for the first 30 days in which the presidential sweepstakes has been narrowed down to just two candidates:

McCain has bungled his top priorities of separating himself from Bush and building confidence in his ability to handle the economy.

The most glaring political misstep was McCain's speech on the economy in which he urged more offshore drilling -- on the same day that Bush was also pressing the issue.

"That didn't quite work," Stephanopoulos said.

The campaign will try again. "Next week they'll talk about the economy every single day to try to break out on that issue," Stephanopoulos said.

Looking ahead, McCain has to get his campaign back on track and "pick a vice president who can really help him on the economy," he said.

Obama has done "pretty well" on achieving his top priorities of unifying the Democratic Party after his long battle with Clinton and using a series of speeches on values and patriotism to appeal to blue-collar voters, Stephanopoulos said.

Obama's reversal on limiting campaign spending and dodging McCain's invitation to a series of town hall-style debates, however, dented his mantra of change.

"The one downside for Obama over the last month -- he promised to be a different kind of politician, post partisan. When you see him flipping on the issue of public financing campaigns, not meeting John McCain in those debates, he's taken a bit of a hit on that," Stephanopoulos said.

He still must establish himself as a commander in chief and Obama's camp believes his upcoming trip to Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel and Europe may be crucial.

"If all goes well, they think they will run a long way toward meeting that goal," Stephanopoulos said.