Oh, HELL NO!

Well, John McCain left the stump Wednesday and ran to his old comfort zone, Washington, D.C., hoping a publicity stunt framed as "suspending the campaign" would stop Barack Obama from talking about the fiscal crisis facing the country.

What else should we expect from a guy who asked Phil Gramm to write his economic program? My friends, as McCain often says, this strategy reeks of Charlie Black. It's vintage Karl Rove.

Once again, here's the formula: The news is bad, and polls are slipping, so launch an offensive by throwing something unexpected at your opponent. Surprise him with a subjective choice he can't ignore, and whatever he decides, tell the public "he doesn't share your values." If the mainstream media doesn't bite, scream "liberal bias" until the echo chamber drowns out the issue that was untenable in the first place.

It's Media Manipulation 101. How many times will national reporters let themselves be cowed by the pack of consultants that has steered the Bush machine and polluted national politics with this strategy for more than 30 years?

This is the most cynical transparent ploy of the campaign. Obama should dismiss it outright and counter McCain's ruse with an equally surprising suggestion.

He should offer to cancel the debate format this Friday in favor of a non-moderated, 90-minute discussion, where the two candidates sit down at the agreed time in front of the same audience with the national media present and discuss the economy calmly and rationally like two United States senators campaigning for the presidency.

In short, they should have an extemporaneous public conversation. That would be change we can believe in.

If McCain declines, Obama should still travel to Oxford, Miss., and do what any school board, city council, state assembly or congressional candidate would do if an opponent tried to sand bag a joint appearance at the last minute: debate an empty chair.

I nearly lost my lunch Wednesday when I read a Newsweek blogger crowing at the possibility that he may have played a role in McCain's decision to forgo the debate. In The Tricky Politics of McCain's Maneuver, Andy Romano wrote:

The announcement comes a day after this blog noted the remarkable similarities between McCain's list of recommended "improvements" for the mammoth $700 billion Treasury bailout bill and Barack Obama's--and criticized both candidates for continuing to "us[e] the bailout to bludgeon each other daily on the campaign trail," suggesting that the real political advantage might lie elsewhere.

"Why don't the two most powerful politicians in the country at this point--two politicians who profess to be uncommonly bipartisan--go back to Washington and lead the bipartisan effort to get America out of this catastrophic financial mess?" we asked. "Why don't they steer Congress in the direction--toward Main Street and away from Wall Street--they both agree it should go?"

When did Newsweek start dispensing advice to candidates, especially advice that takes them out of public forums away from reporters' questions and makes them less accessible to Americans who don't live on the East Coast? And by what measure are these guys "the two most powerful politicians in this country"?

McCain and Obama may get more daily media coverage than most politicians these days, and one of them likely will be president in about four months, but George Bush still sits in the Oval Office, and until mid-January this is his crisis.

It's Bush's regulatory program, his federal reserve chairman and his Treasury Department. Some major government action is likely, but Bush - not Obama or McCain - will play chief executive for the first round of disaster relief, hopefully with input from Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Harry Reed.

The candidates on the other hand should feel pressure - despite Newsweek's bizarre agenda - to stay out on the campaign trail, where they can listen to working-class Americans and be questioned by local reporters and citizen journalists whose self-worth isn't tied to the seat they are assigned for the White House daily briefing.

They need to begin building rapport with us by having a conversation that will continue for one of them for at least the next four years.

The worst thing that could happen is for the future president - whomever it may be - to retreat to Senate committee rooms, dinners at The Palm and closed meetings with White House staff, where well-heeled lobbyists and bipartisan power brokers can coach him on the finer points of the issues and on how to decide what is best for the rest of us with little or no public input or scrutiny.

Bringing McCain and Obama to Washington, D.C., threatens to politicize the solution, which may be what Bush wants. McCain's campaign has been severly wounded by this crisis, so it isn't surprising he's capitulated. Obama should stay away from D.C. and continue to talk to voters.

And voters should expect the appropriate representative from each campaign to be present at each of the four scheduled debates.

In times like this, we should look for ways to nourish the national conversation, not starve it, and there simply isn't a better tool for getting millions of Americans to come together for a discussion during an election year than a presidential forum.

Now's the time for all of us to step-up as citizens and start talking to our friends and people we may not always agree with about this very complex issue - something few if any of us understand completely - so we can tell our leaders what WE want THEM to do. Not the other way around.

National news organizations should stop analyzing the political strategy behind decisions to attend or not attend this debate or any of the others. And they shouldn't let McCain reduce the coverage of the market meltdown to photo ops or let insider baseball from the campaign trail dominate stories about a solution to the financial crisis that is George Bush's to make.

They should demand the presidential debates go forward, and the best financial reporters in the country - in the world for that matter - should be in Mississippi on Friday, so they can ask tough questions in post-debate interviews and nail down answers about this disaster from the candidates and the people who advise them on financial matters.

If McCain cedes the evening and Obama shows up, reporters should ignore predictable calls McCain will make for a news black out. But they can't let Obama slide.

Obama should go to Mississippi, bring his "A" game and expect the grilling of his political life. This is the presidency, not American Idol.

Americans deserve to know both candidates' plans for the economy, including who helped write them, how the numbers add up and where on Earth they believe this ridiculous pot of $700 billion everyone keeps fantasizing about is going to come from.

McCain seems to have made his choice. But if Obama wants to lead the country, he should step up and help Americans who don't necessarily understand all the aspects of this historic crisis come together and begin a long-term national conversation about our economy that focuses on people and issues outside Washington, D.C.

And that conversation should begin on Friday at Ole Miss.

Comments

[DuPageDem]

These reporters aren't cowed. They're owned, from their designer footwear to their coifed 'dos, by the same transnational corporate masters who own Bush and McSame.

[Kwaayesnama]

Is this the financial genius we are talking about?
The Chicago Tribune Interview 12/07: McCain said, "The issue of economics is something that I've really never understood as well as I should. I understand the basics, the fundamentals, the vision, all that kind of stuff,'' he said. "But I would like to have someone I'm close to that really is a good strong economist. As long as Alan Greenspan is around I would certainly use him for advice and counsel..."I've never been involved in Wall Street, I've never been involved in the financial stuff, the financial workings of the country, so I'd like to have somebody intimately familiar with it," he said of a potential vice presidential candidate, that’s Sarah Palin?

[Malarcus]

Rather than simply debating an empty chair, I believe that Obama should use the opportunity to introduce Bob Barr to the nation by accepting Barr's offer to join the debate. Barr becomes the Conservative answer to Nader as his Libertarian bend siphons off true Conservatives who still largely feel uncomfortable backing McCain but do so as they cannot support Obama.

[ewoman]

Next thing you know, Rove et.al. will suspend the election, and Newsweek or any other free press might wonder where the ability to be "free" in press went. I wondered how the Rove admin was going to steal this election - now I have a vision.

[Skua]

The people who are negotiating the bailout package are the President, the Secretary of the Treasury, and the ranking members of both parties of the Senate and House committees dealing with banking and financial services. If they can't manage it without Senator McCain (and Senator Obama, who was curtly told by McCain two days ago that the process would have to go ahead without his input), then they can't manage it WITH Senator McCain. I haven't seen anything to show that McCain's encyclopedic knowledge of the financial sector and superb diplomatic skills are particularly indispensible to the process.

If they are not needed in DC, then they should do their jobs, which at this point in time is to BE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES. They have to spend this time telling us who they are and what their plans and values are, so that in a few weeks we, the voters, can do our jobs and vote for the right people. I think most of us believe that the democratic process is important enough to go ahead with.

[Mary1943]

For the past 7 years Bush's record of meeting with members of both parties has been virturally zero and NOW he want to meet with both party's leaders and both candidates for president?? Let's get real here. That's pretty transparent, for a change, to this voter. I think it means let's get Obama away from preparation for the debate, on what you say, the economy? No, the debate is to be on foreign policy.
Let's hold him up in D.C. and maybe, just maybe he won't make it back to Mississippi in time or have time to prepare. But, thank goodness, he's called their bluff.
These people are devious, cunning, dangerous and liars. So, why should any of us believe this meeting at the White House is necessary, important or decisive. I think it's just another Rove tactic to stall the campaigns so they can do something to bump up the polls in McCain's favor. Rove's tactics are becoming more recognizable as time goes by and they are appearing more desperate.
I personally hope they all lose everything they have and have to come down here where the everyday people exist.

[colette]

Good post, thank you.

You've touched on something that's driving me pretty nuts. The latest thing for all this 24/7 media is to level the whole race. Anytime you point out something negative about McCain, you have to follow it with a slap at Obama. Fear of somebody somewhere saying you're "in the tank" with Obama & the Dems (which they will every time you utter an unkind word about McSame) is creating this absurd situation.

So what we're getting is a load of crap about how they're both just "politicians" instead of "change agents," and the message? They both stink, they'all the same, so who cares?

This stunt by McCain about the debates is draws fire to Obama, even though most reporters must know it was a desperate play for the Repubs to regain momentum? Horrible AP story about how they're both "using" the debates and are equally smarmy.?This is an election, people! Of course they're both being politicians for pity's sake.

Politico's story today titled John Kerry II vs. Bush III smacks them both around for not being different and running the clean, ethical campaign they promised. Sure, they bear some responsibility for that. But what about the damn media? If you play a 30-second spot of Rev. Wright a million times, and endlessly obsess over the "pig with lipstick" comment, aren't you setting the tone here? How do you expect people to reform the election process, if your twaddle continues to warp it?

[Pieface]

Bush has summoned both Obama and McCain to meet with him regarding his plan to tackle this economic crisis. Obama needs to listen and learn. He needs to observe what real life as a world leader is all about. This is not the time for him to think small and selfish about some silly debate in Ol' Miss.

[jcutbirth]

Yeah, he definitely has a lot to learn from the guy who:

got a report about the possiblity of a domestic terrorist attack in Jan 2001 and was sitting on his ass reading My Pet Goat the day they flew planes into the World Trade Center;

given every benefit of the doubt misled the Congress and the United Nations and launched a needless war that has lasted longer than WWII, depleted our armed forces and national guard and run our national deficit to unprecedented levels;

totally ignored round the clock television coverage about a hurricane destroying a great American city and killing 1,500 citizens and only sprung into action after a staff aid brought him a DVD and made him stop clearing brush long enough to watch it;

and now after eight years of regulatory malfeasance came to congress this week with a three page plan that would give one of his cabinet appointees czar like status by handing him $700 billion and exempting decisions he made with the money from regulatory oversight and judicial review.

Yea, great mentor for our next leader.

[NURREDIN]

What is Obama supposed to learn from a "C' student who bankrupted our economy, spends $10 BILLION a month attacking a country that NEVER attacked us while the guys who did are taking over Pakistan(who have nuclear weapons)? What's he going to learn from a "D" student who was the Chairman of the Commerce committee when all these now bankrupt companies were deregulated? Did you see how STUPID Sarah Palin was during her Couric interview? And John McCain thinks she's ready to lead? You must have graduated at the bottom of your class too.

[NURREDIN]

My last comment was meant for PIEFACE, not JCUTBIRTH!

[justobserve]

When Obama learns, he choose his teachers very carefully. Sorry, McCain is not the man because Obama definitely needs not learn McCain's lies, reckless judgment , cronyism, Keating 5,...

[AmHope]

Learn from George Bush (one of the most inarticulate, unqualified presidents we've ever had)? Ha!
Or from John McCain? Ha!...
...A man who graduated 4th (or 5th) from the bottom of his class!
A man who's lost his ethical values, his sense of fair play, his honor, just to name a few.
A man/child who pouts when things don't go his way?
I'm sure Obama's standards are higher (as they should be).
And that "silly debate" is an essential part of our election process.

[cyndeewi]

Joe the title of your post is great. Hell to the No would have been great as well.

I am the only one that noticed that the President invited McCain and Obama to Washington tomorrow? The are all in this together.