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McCain’s stunt

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Yes, it’s a stunt.  This where we are right now: McCain’s poll numbers are collapsing, the Palin sideshow gets more farcical every day, and if McCain doesn’t score a huge win in Friday’s foreign policy debate, he can pretty much hang it up, since he will almost certainly lose ground in the domestic policy and VP debates.  This calls for what the footballers call a Hail Mary.

And here it is:

Senator John McCain said Wednesday that he would suspend campaigning on Thursday, and seek a delay in this week’s planned presidential debate, so that he could return to Washington to try to forge a consensus on a financial bailout package.

Interestingly, a reasonable degree of joint action was actually Obama’s idea.

Mr. Obama apparently began the exchange with his Republican rival hours earlier.

“At 8:30 this morning, Senator Obama called Senator McCain to ask him if he would join in issuing a joint statement outlining their shared principles and conditions for the Treasury proposal and urging Congress and the White House to act in a bipartisan manner to pass such a proposal,” said Bill Burton, the spokesman for the Obama campaign.

“At 2:30 this afternoon,” he added, “Senator McCain returned Senator Obama’s call and agreed to join him in issuing such a statement. The two campaigns are currently working together on the details.”

So McCain, impulsive gambler that he is, basically said “I’ll see your joint statement, and raise you a debate!  I’m all in, baby!”

Obama has apparently rejected the call to delay the debate.

[A] senior Obama campaign official said Obama “intends to debate.”

“The debate is on,” a senior Obama campaign official told ABC News.

I mean, seriously.  The election is in six weeks, and that date is not going to change.  American democracy has to move forward, and the debates are a crucial part of that.  In fact, what more important time to hear at length from the two candidates than when the stakes are high?  

Now, I could definitely see changing the topic of the debate from foreign to domestic policy, since the latter is what’s on everyone’s mind these days.  But of course, McCain would never go for that.

UPDATE: Harry Reid says “thanks, but no thanks” to McCain’s offer to drop everything and parachute into DC, in a statement that makes a lot of sense.

This is a critical time for our country. While I appreciate that both candidates have signaled their willingness to help, Congress and the Administration have a process in place to reach a solution to this unprecedented financial crisis.

I understand that the candidates are putting together a joint statement at Senator Obama’s suggestion. But it would not be helpful at this time to have them come back during these negotiations and risk injecting presidential politics into this process or distract important talks about the future of our nation’s economy. If that changes, we will call upon them. We need leadership; not a campaign photo op.

If there were ever a time for both candidates to hold a debate before the American people about this serious challenge, it is now.

Note Reid’s suggestion in the last sentence that the topic be altered from foreign to domestic policy.  That’s really a good idea, and it’s hard to imagine a bunch of journalists talking about policy toward Uzbekistan when the American economy in on the line.

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Comments

  1. I believe congratulations are in order for David and my synchronized posts saying almost exactly the same things. David’s is more focused than mine, and has more background about the specific event, but mine has more context. Brilliant work, David.

  3. Obama asked that it be changed to foreign policy, and McCain agreed.  I’m not sure why, or what the Obama campaign was trying to accomplish – but your insinuation that McCain is being non-cooperative is a little overboard.

    • Assuming that your assertion, for which you typically supply no link, is accurate, it’s irrelevant.  What I am saying is that it would make sense NOW to change the topic, in light of the events of the last week or so, and that I highly doubt McCain would accept the suggestion to do so.

      • http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09…

        <

        p>And the relevant quote – “Mr. Obama successfully sought to flip the proposed topics for the first and third debates, so foreign policy is now coming first and economic and other domestic issues come last. There is a second debate, in the format of a town hall meeting, in which the candidates will sit on director’s chairs and take questions from the audience and Internet users on any topic.

        <

        p>The debate commission had proposed that the first debate be on economic issues and the third on foreign policy – in part, people involved in the process said, because the first debate is usually the most watched, and many voters rank the economy as their top concern.

        <

        p>Mr. Obama wanted foreign policy first to show viewers that he could provide depth, strength and intelligence on those issues, his advisers said, given that Mr. McCain consistently wins higher ratings in opinion polls as a potential commander in chief.

        <

        p>Mr. Obama wanted domestic issues to come last; advisers said that they believed even before the start of the financial crisis that the election was most likely to turn on the state of the economy and that he wanted the final televised exchange to focus on those concerns. He has argued that Mr. McCain would continue the economic policies of President Bush.”

        <

        p>Do I need to get a second corroborating source, or is the New York Times sufficient for you?  I hadn’t realized this was an obscure politicalstory.

        <

        p>

        • … but you’re lacking a crucial piece of evidence on it… namely timing.  If Obama “successfully sought to flip the proposed topics for the first and third debates” and you want to ascribe a motive of wanting to avoid the issue for the debate given the current circumstances, then you have to show that the timing of the flip can be tied to the timing of circumstances.  Otherwise its just another haggle over a debate detail, which isn’t particularly noteworthy because these details get haggled for every debate.  What you have there is a suspicion.

  6. Obama just now in a presser says he wants to put aside partisan politics, but also debate on Friday. “With respect to the debates, it’s my belief that this is exactly the time when the American people need to hear form the person who in 40 days will be responsible for dealing with this mess. . . . In my mind, actually it’s more important than ever that we present ourselves to the American people.” He did not commit to come back to Washington, saying he did not want to “infuse Capitol Hill with presidential politics.” It’s a poker game, alright. And someone still might fold.

  8. I swear I wrote this post before I read this!

    <

    p>

    McCain suspends his campaign because of financial crisis? Oh please. Given today’s poll numbers–even Fox has him dropping–it seems another Hail Mary (like the feckless selection of Palin) to try make McCain seem a statesman, which is difficult given the puerile tenor of his campaign’s message operation.

    Perhaps, if he’s really interested in this financial stuff, McCain should propose that he and Obama change the topic from foreign policy to economics this Friday night–they could even stage the debate in Washington, so they wouldn’t have to stray far from the bailout negotiations. I’m sure their fellow members of the Senate won’t mind if McCain and Obama spend a few hours enlightening the public on this crucial subject.

    • … earlier today as well:

      After a week or two of getting beaten in the campaign, McCain has come up with a novel way to regain his footing: End the campaign. …  …As far as I can tell, the argument is that this is simply not a moment when the American people can afford a discussion of the issues.

      But this only makes sense if you’ve been running, well, John McCain’s campaign. A bread-and-circus show meant to distract Americans from the issues at hand. If that’s your model of politics, then it makes a certain sense to suspend your relentless festival of diversion to focus on the financial crisis. Debates, however, are not planned by Steve Schmidt or run as 30-second ads. … …He is simply hiding from the debate. He’s a kid pulling the fire alarm because final is coming up and he hasn’t studied.

      Love that last line.

      <

      p>Here’s another interesting point he made latter in the day about politicization of the crisis.

      <

      p>

      The contrast here is a clear one. Obama argued that the presidential candidates should recede into the background, agree on a common position and let Congress work without the impediment. It was a bipartisan stunt meant to construct a protected space for the congressional negotiations, where they could proceed without relative freedom from the presidential contest.

      McCain loudly proclaimed the need to set aside politics, focused cameras by demanding a suspension of the debates, and promised that both candidates would fully insert themselves and their entourages and their media power and their electoral interests into the negotiations. The McCain campaign has politicized the bailout debate even as it volubly denounces politics. It is astonishingly reckless. In that, it is par for the course. Whenever the polls turn, they seek comfort in chaos. They speak of the experience and seasoning needed for governance but pick Sarah Palin. They call for an end to politics amidst crucial congressional negotiations then fling the crush of the presidential campaign atop an already-delicate process. In their attempts to define themselves as above politics, they will politicize anything.

  9. TPM has the story.

    <

    p>What to do about debates?

    <

    p>Hold as Scheduled 50%
    Hold with Econ Focus 36%
    Postpone 10%
    Not Sure 4%

    <

    p>Would canceling the debates be good for America?

    <

    p>Good for America 14%
    Bad for America 46%
    No difference 35%
    Not Sure 6%

      • I’d agree if the results were something like 52% don’t postpone and 48% postpone, but the results were radically different from that with a very small percentage (smaller even than Bush’s latest 19% approval rating) saying to postpone. Even if you double the figure in favor of postponement, it’s still small.

        <

        p>So yes, the data have a very wide margin of error, but, accepting that, this is still information.

        • A combination of my hasty reading and johnk’s sloppy wording led me to  believe (wrongly) that the poll was an unscientific, self selected sampling, internet-type poll that asked about canceling all the debates (plural).
          As apposed to deferring one debate, as was proffered by McCain.

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