Obviously McCain's move to postpone the debate and campaigning in order to "work the financial crisis" will be the headline tonight. Vote on whether you view it more or less favorably.
TW: Politico's Arena has feedback from the elites (of both parties) what really matters of course is how this will play with the low information voters who ultimately decide the election (the high information voters should be more or less locked in at this point). The Arena feedback is pretty straight line party stuff, would be more interested in feedback on what you think the voter reacts are. Mike Shearer at Time blogged that he thought this is a high stakes poker match with tremendous risk and opportunity as both sides think they can win this one and will therefore push in alot of chips, McCain is perhaps almost in a position where he goes all in.
TW update1: From Obama
"This is exactly the time that the American people need to hear from the person who, in approximately 40 days, will be responsible for dealing with this mess...I think the president's job is to do more than one thing at a time. In my mind it's more important than ever that we present ourselves to the American people and discuss where we want to take the country"...Obama also said its time to put partisan politics aside to craft bailout legislation... "This is no longer a Democrat or Republican problem," Obama said. "It requires an American solution."
http://www.politico.com/arena/
From the cool-headed hands at Economist:
"I THINK my colleague in Washington has it right when he says John McCain is 'suspending his campaign in order to help his campaign.' Here's the timeline: This morning Barack Obama called John McCain to discuss issuing a joint statement of principles on the financial bailout. Mr McCain's response was the campaign suspension gimmick—a pretty obvious attempt at one-upmanship in the game of who can look more presidential.
But suggesting a complete change of course and calling the debate to a halt doesn't make Mr McCain look like a president; it makes him look like a drama queen. Presidents have to handle multiple crises at once; they do not get to call timeout when it suits them. George Bush cannot ask al-Qaeda to just cool it for a few months until the economy rights itself. Over the past week Mr McCain has veered wildly, from assuring voters our economy remained fundamentally strong to demanding Christopher Cox's head on a platter. This just seems like one more desperate hurl at the dartboard."
From Politico's Smith:
"The McCain campaign's new urgency about the financial crisis didn't entirely clear his schedule this morning.
My colleague Amie Parnes reports that he made it to his scheduled morning meeting with Lady Lynn de Rothschild, a Clinton backer who recently came out in support of him.
All while Obama was waiting by the phone for a returned call."
4 comments:
Obama has to match Mccain and postpone the debate.. this bailout has to get done and both need to show leadership.. Looks like mccain has beaten obama to the punch in the press even though Obama reached out to mccain 1st to join forces.
Obama doesn't and shouldn't "match McCain!" The debate needs to go on, and they need to keep up with the comments of their colleagues on the Senate floor. They need to do both! They also need to show up and vote. They have planes, they can travel pretty quickly. McCain is just chicken and can't win the debate, so he is stalling.
Not disagreeing that Mccain is taking advantage of this opportunity to stall the "whooping" he is going to take in the debate.. McCain has cleverly trapped Obama where he either can match him and stall the debate (which quesitons his leadership as he wasn't the first to suggest it) or push for the debate and risk coming off as not caring about the American people just caring about the election. Both raise questions about his leadership and slows down the momentum Obama has gained in the past 10 days..
What I find clever about this is Obama started all this with trying to reach out to Mccain to addresss this in a bi-partisan way which will probably get lost in the end.
Looks like the old guy is trying to rewrite all the rules to serve his own selfish needs. Nope, no press conferences. Nope you can't talk to her. I want to change the whole way this thing works. Oooh maybe he'll try to change the whole way our whole voting system works and we can all vote a la American Idol. Oh, wait he wouldn't do that because he probably doesn't know what that is. I know there's a Lawrence Welk show reference in here somewhere but .....
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