Behind Team McCain's Sudden Gambit
John McCain's statement "suspending" his campaign, in which he proposes to postpone the first presidential debate.
Well, that was, ah, sudden. Yesterday, as I've reported on my New West Notes, John McCain campaign topper Steve Schmidt's consulting partner, former Arnold Schwarzenegger communications director Adam Mendelsohn, traveled to Mississippi to handle media relations for Friday night's debate on foreign policy, McCain's seeming strong suit. But this afternoon, East Coast time, Team McCain moved to delay the debate and "suspend" the presidential campaign. To focus on events in Washington.
Where McCain has not cast a vote in the U.S. Senate in nearly six months.
What has happened in the intervening period from yesterday to this morning? Well, first, that would be a series of polls, including those in battleground states and those in national polls -- from ABC News to even FOX News -- mostly showing Obama surging ahead of McCain.
Meanwhile, as Schmidt and Mendelsohn et al know first-hand, I've been wrapping up a column on Friday night's foreign policy debate. Which is a typical American media misnomer, as "foreign" policy in the 21st century is geopolitics. Which merely affects virtually everything in American politics today -- from flows of energy, capital, people, products, and ideas to the deep questions of this country's balance of trade and military budget.
A column on the "foreign policy debate" amounts to doing a tour d'horizon, then putting it all into relatively brief and accessible terms for a larger audience.
But, overnight, Team McCain had a different, confounding idea. While I have been in the process of wrapping up a column on the geopolitics debate for Friday night -- which in what we laughingly call the national media debate, chattering in ADD fashion all the way, affects everything in America -- several New West Notes posters informed me that John McCain intended to postpone the debate, which is on his seeming strong suit, and suspend his campaign per se, in order to focus on the financial crisis.
A reality check. This is an attempted reboot, in a losing scenario. McCain has been all over the lot on the financial crisis. His problem? He is a staunch deregulationist, at a moment in history in which it is clear that that approach has failed. I'm not going to get into the question of the role of McCain's key staff in lobbying for and receiving major value from various big finance entities. But it is quite significant. Indeed, it is difficult to preruse the top ranks of the McCain campaign without finding a a wealthy lobbyist.
More to the point, despite Team McCain trotting out one of their pollsters this morning on a conference call, it is clear that Obama is surging in various polls. I haven't bothered to comment on all of them, one of them being the FOX News poll.
I hope Obama does not cancel the debate. Which I am sure he will not. And not just because I have spent some time on a column. But because the issues have been ignored, they are all linked when you see the overall, and there is not a lot of time left to debate them.
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Okay.. I think I got it figured out now :) I wont say what it is, so like McCain, I can try to take credit no matter which way it goes :)
It is pathetically obvious that BOTH McCain and Bush are politicizing the bailout and now acting like McCain is setting aside his political ambitions, all for the sake of country, at his expense. The Repugs will hold out until McCain arrives to save the day, and it will be played llike they couldn't have done it without him and he was willing to set everything aside just to do this.
Personally, I really believe Obama should offer to have their #2s, Palin and Biden, step in and CONTINUE the campaigns, as #2s should be able to do, and debate tomorrow instead of them! Basically offer that they swap the VP debate with the one for tomorrow. It would put McCain on the defensive again, and call his bluff. And Obama would be able to say that this would allow both of them to focus on the bailout 100% and for Americans to be able to get a debate, and for Mississippi not to lose $5.5 million that they've spend preparing for the debate.
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Actually, they have a deal now, and it did not take the arrival of John McCain ...
I'm watching and it looks like the Republicans have NOT signed on yet...so I still think that they'll act like McCain convinced them so he comes out sounding like a "hero" who puts "country before campaign".
Cheap stuff, Bradley. Try again.
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Really? Kindly enlighten me as to how accurate reporting is "cheap."
All reporting is "cheap" to the McCain crowd.
Isn't this a no whining zone?
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Correct.
Palin is such a silly joke.
it is amazing anyone pretends to take her seriously.
What is the temper of the man on the street for the bailout?
Obama has said he is for it with considerations.
Im having a hard time pinning down what McCain's stand is, if he has made one yet.
New G. was on Fox earlier laying groundwork "Well the Dems want to bail out the Fat Cats
but John may just do the right thing for the people and act like a real maverick".
Interesting Times. Do they see John standing in the well of the Senate like a populist hero?
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McCain has been all over the lot on this issue in the past week-and-a-half.
"The economy is STRONG."
The Dems want to bail out the fat cats? The Dems being George W. Bush and Dick Cheney?
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Well, there must be a vote for a Democrat somewhere in their pasts ...
McCain is a hyperactive, ADD, 72-year old kid.
Sorry Newt G.
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I'm not sure who has been waiting for Newt Gingrich to weigh in on this thing.
I was pleased he decided not to run for president, as it meant I didn't have to read his alternate universe history scifil novels about World War II ...
Oh, God, speaking of ADD ...
Yeah. No kidding. SQUARED.
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Squared? Tripled?
Quadrupled!
I don't know what the story is of your friendship with Schmidt and Mendelson, but I for one want to HEAR MORE.
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Not appropriate, now.
Why not?
Is your friend Steve Schmidt crazy? Or crazy smart in manipulating the weakling media?
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I am thinking the latter.
The news media has bent over backwards to this Gestapo.
Ridiculous video.
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Comapared to what?
Remember, most of politics -- to a point, naturally -- is relative.
Relatiive?
Relative to what, fascism?!