The Tower is happy to offer three different versions of what transpired, on Senator McCain’s conference call with new-media/bloggers on Tuesday morning, July 24.

Here is the first - Ryan Sager of the New York Observer (who posted it almost immediately, as it ended):

McCain Conference Call

Posted by Ryan Sager
Tue, 24 Jul 2007 at 10:39 AM

John McCain held a blogger conference call today — to my knowledge, the first since his campaign fell apart.

Like Soren Dayton, I missed the very beginning of the call. There wasn’t much remarkable, but here were the highlights:

* Mr. McCain attacked Barack Obama’s statement that he would meet immediately with the leaders of rogue states, calling it “naive.”

* He fired back at Newt Gingrich, who said yesterday that Mr. McCain would drop out of the presidential race as soon as he collects his matching funds. Mr. Gingrich has no idea what he’s talking about, Mr. McCain said, unless he has “listening devices” installed in McCain headquarters. Instead, Mr. McCain argues, any decision to accept matching funds would be about winning.

* I asked whether Mr. McCain was still committed to the early state strategy. The senator said he is, though he also said states like Michigan and Florida would be important. “There are states like Michigan … where they may be much earlier as this movement goes on … Florida may move. … It’s sort of always been our strategy.” Of course, the McCain campaign hardly has the money to play just in IA, NH, and SC (it hardly has the money to play in the bathtub), so it’s difficult to see how they’d bring either of these states into play. Again, I refer readers to Mr. McCain’s sharp drop to third place (heading for fourth) in the Sunshine State.

* Also, Mr. McCain claimed that soon he would give a speech about the Kelo case (that’s the awful eminent domain decision the Supreme Court recently handed down).

All in all, Mr. McCain sounded about as worn and beaten down by this campaign as he always does. I’ve not labeled this post as a Death Watch item, but this remains a campaign on life support.

 You can read the original article by clicking here.  Hat tip to Race42008.com who spotted Sager’s article.

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