Even his allies laughed when John McCain said in an ad, "Complete the danged fence"

It almost seems like a political tradition: the great John McCain campaign-staff shake-up. As the Arizona Republic's Dan Nowicki first reported Sunday, the top two staffers in McCain's Senate re-election effort — campaign manager Shiree Verdone and her deputy, Mike Hellon — have decamped. The two will work for the Arizona Republican Party, overseeing strategy for a "victory" fundraising effort for statewide candidates, including McCain.

The move comes on the heels of a recent TV ad meant to tout McCain's border security credentials, including a push for a stronger fence along the U.S.-Mexico border. "Complete the danged fence," McCain says in the ad. The only problem: Three years ago, McCain dismissed a fence as the "least effective" means of securing the border. The ad prompted much snickering — not just from his GOP primary rival, Rep. J.D. Hayworth, who attacked McCain as a flip-flopper, but even McCain pals like Rep. John Shadegg (R-Ariz.), who openly laughed at the ad last week on MSNBC's "Morning Joe."