THE PROBLEM WITH WASHINGTON PLAYERS. It is one of the unwritten laws of presidential campaigning that it is exceptionally difficult to win the White House from inside the Beltway, and even tougher to do so without a group of loyalists with fresh ideas based somewhere other than D.C. And yet, despite this, every cycle presidential candidates vie for the allegiance of their party's most established Washington players.

This cycle, John McCain of Arizona won the battle for the Bush consultants, picking up Bush-Cheney '04 political director Terry Nelson last spring. His announcement was met with great fanfare, as this March 2006 Washington Post piece by Chris Cillizza and Zachary A. Goldfarb makes clear:

In the behind-the-scenes hunt for 2008 campaign talent, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) has bagged a big one.

Terry Nelson, who served as national political director for President Bush's reelection race in 2004, has signed on as a senior adviser to McCain's Straight Talk America political action committee....

Nelson's formal role for Straight Talk will be to maximize the organization's influence and effectiveness in the 2006 midterm elections, but his hiring also makes a major mark on the 2008 landscape.

McCain and his chief political strategist, John Weaver, have spent much of the past year courting key members of the Bush campaign team. Until now, the majority of that recruiting has focused on the men and women -- designated Pioneers, Rangers and Super Rangers -- who each helped collect hundreds of thousands of dollars for Bush in 2000 and again in 2004....But the hiring of Nelson shows that McCain and Weaver are not neglecting the staff side of the presidential process....

A McCain adviser described Nelson as the "best bricklayer in the business" for his ability to build and implement a massive grass-roots political organization.

Well, it turns out that all Nelson wound up laying for McCain is eggs. The A.P. is now reporting that he has been canned:

John McCain's campaign manager and chief strategist are gone from their leadership roles, according to several officials with knowledge of the staff changes.

One official said Terry Nelson resigned as campaign manager for the Republican presidential candidate and John Weaver stepped down from his post of chief strategist on Tuesday. But other officials said Nelson was fired.

A just-released statement from Sen. McCain adds:

Today, John Weaver and Terry Nelson offered their resignations from my presidential campaign, which I accepted with regret and deep gratitude for their dedication, hard work and friendship. Terry is a consummate professional, who has ably lead this campaign through a challenging political environment. John Weaver has been my friend and trusted counselor for many years and to whom I am greatly indebted. In the days and weeks ahead this campaign will move forward, and I will continue to address the issues of greatest concern to the American people, laying out my vision for a secure and prosperous America.

This is a huge turn-around for the McCain campaign, for Nelson, and especially for Weaver, who has been one of McCain's longest-serving political advisors. And yet it is also probably the only thing that has a chance of resurrecting McCain's faltering campaign. If McCain brings in top-notch new campaign management, new money, and rebuilds his campaign operations in Iowa and elsewhere, his odds of winning the nomination can go from about zero -- where they are now -- to low.

As I detailed last week, there are many substantive reasons the conservative base in Iowa is resistant to McCain's campaign -- concerns which conservatives across the country appear to share. Those reasons are not going to be altered by new management, but new management might be the only thing able to give the campaign enough credibility to boost fundraising, which it will need to do in order to even compete with Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney, and Fred Thompson going forward.

--Garance Franke-Ruta