An interesting phrase from the Wall Street Journal:

Political ad-makers Russ Schriefer and Stuart Stevens, veterans of President Bush's 2000 and 2004 campaigns, on Monday emailed [Arizona Sen. John McCain's] new campaign manager -- lobbyist and longtime McCain adviser Rick Davis -- to say that they were quitting. ...

Their resignations followed a story in The Wall Street Journal Monday about Mr. Davis's business and lobbying activities. Current and former McCain campaign advisers say those activities -- which involved a business he started and another launched by an acquaintance of his -- amounted to profiteering at the campaign's expense and risked embarrassing the senator.

A lot of the cynicism in American politics today stems from the (largely unacknowledged) fact that politics is a multimillion-dollar industry. It's 15 months until Election Day, and already the major national party campaign committees have raised a combined total of $188 million for the 2008 campaign. That's not counting the money raised by individual candidates, PACs, 527s, etc.

Everyone in the politics industry can tell tales of operatives who treat campaigns like get-rich-quick opportunities. I've heard plenty of such stories over the years -- stories I can't repeat because they were told in confidence.

Grassroots contributors and volunteer activists are essential to the success of any campaign. But a major campaign -- for governor, Congress or the White House -- also requires the services of paid professionals, and if the professionals don't do their jobs right, then the labors of candidates and volunteers (and the contributors' cash) are simply wasted.

There are fortunes to be made in the business of professional politics, and there is no shortage of consultants and strategists who have raked in big money running losing campaigns. It's not that the consultants and strategists want their clients to lose, of course. It's simply that the professionals get paid, win or lose.

One of the sure signs of a doomed campaign is that the campaign budget seems to evaporate with astonishing rapidity. No matter how much money the candidate raises, the campaign's spending is like a bottomless pit, so the cash-on-hand number sinks faster than the candidate's poll numbers.

"Where did all that money go?" the candidate's disappointed supporters may wonder. "And why didn't all that spending produce a better result?"

Campaigns pay professionals for political advice, but bad advice is not necessarily cheaper than good advice. And like I said: The pros get paid, win or lose.

-- Robert Stacy McCain, assistant national editor, The Washington Times