John McCain’s decision to not participate in the debate has nothing to do with the current financial crisis or anything going on in congress. Given McCain’s voting record (least of anybody, ever) it’s pretty obvious he doesn’t give a shit about bills going on. Hell, he didn’t even vote on any of the bills that he’s using in his current TV commercials as examples of pork barrel spending that he stopped.
McCain knows that any debate he or Palin participate in can only hurt their campaign. Seriously.
The majority of McCain supporters fall into 2 categories: Republicans who always vote republican, and people who are only supporting McCain because he’s not Obama.
There’s no changing the minds of that first category. They’re going to vote republican because they’ve always done so and that’s that. McCain could fellate a puppy on national television and they’d still support him.
The second group however isn’t so tied to him. Some of them are racists, some of them have fallen for the lies of his TV campaign, and a large majority of them still think Obama is a Muslim. They just aren’t familiar with him.
It’s obvious from his past appearances that McCain isn’t as good of a debater as Obama. When faced with a tough question, McCain often goes back to his “when I was a POW” story and completely sidesteps it. When asked with a policy question, such as “should health care cover birth control?” he often answers with “I’ll have my people get back to you.”
That’s why the Republican party announced last month that all interviews had to be approved. They wanted to make sure they were lobbing softball questions that they had prepared for.
In a debate, you can ask anything, and saying “I’ll get back to you” just won’t fly.
McCain isn’t ready to debate. There’s no way he can win a debate with Obama and he knows that.
Sure, there will be public backlash against him for not debating, but that won’t steer voters away from him.
Looking like a stumbling fool on TV as he can’t answer any tough questions thrown at him – could cost him his campaign.
Look for him to find other reasons not to debate, or sidestep them all entirely.
I have to agree that this “Gotta go to DC” bit was about the campaign in some form.. was it strategy to avoid debating, or was it a ploy to curry favour with the public by pretending he cares enough about those of us with mortgages that he suspended a Presidential campaign..
Regardless, it was a remarkable move that will be studied by Political Science students for years to come..
Obama’s response, though I completely predicted iit word for word, was that a President needs to be able to multi-task. In my view he’s right.
The only kudos I have for McCain is that his team has thrown two big big curve-balls at the Democrats (suspending campaign, and Palin) and the Dems whiffed on both..
History will judge whether suspending a Presidental campaign 39 days before the election, for any reason, was a good idea or not… but I don’t buy for a nanosecond that this was about helping the American people.. it was a strategic campaign move..
Comment by Jeff — September 26, 2008 @ 9:24 am