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| McCain to attend debate |
| 2008-09-26 |
| WASHINGTON - Republican John McCain says he's going to be at the first presidential debate, even though Congress doesn't have a bailout deal. With less than 10 hours until the debate was scheduled to start, the McCain campaign announced that the Arizona senator would travel to the University of Mississippi. The campaign said after the forum he will fly back to Washington to continue working on the financial crisis. The campaign's statement said McCain is optimistic that there has been progress toward a bipartisan agreement. But earlier in the week, McCain said he would delay the debate "until we have taken action to address this crisis." |
| Posted by:tu3031 |
| #17 Obama is smarting after McCain whacks him with experience like a senior would wield a cane. I have to convince my mother not to vote for someone younger than her son. At 47 Obama does not have the experience and it shows. Obama is a creation of his advisors. He must consult with his advisors and remouth their wisdom to appear wise. John McCain overrides his advisors like he did on the surge (By the grace of God we were saved from assured defeat in Iraq because John McCain believed it was too important to fail.) John McCain has a strategy how to win in Afganistan (actually Pakistan) just like we will and have to win in Iraq first. The only reason Afganistan has turned bad to Obama's delight is because al kaida fled Iraq. |
| Posted by: McCain weilds cane 2008-09-26 23:59 |
| #16 Mercutio, if it helps, I came across this just a few minutes ago: McClatchy Washington Bureau chief writes that McCain was actually quite helpful in the negotiations. Not a bump on a log, after all. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2008-09-26 20:57 |
| #15 Mercutio is one of the good guys - I don't doubt he'll do what's best for the country when the time comes. From what I can gather Senator McCain is trying to guide the herd of cats that live in the two Houses of Congress to a real solution, while the Democrats attempt to bully the Republicans into providing them cover, Candidate Obama demonstrates his inability to work with others, and Secretary of the Treasury Paulson is fussing in private and public because McCain didn't help force through Paulson's $700 billion proposal. As I understand it, the purpose of the proposal was actually to reassure world financial markets that the U.S. will not allow a local melt-down that would cause the world money flows to shut down, leading to a world-wide financial crash. It seems to me -- and Rantburg's financial mavens will please correct me -- that even though no plan has yet been put through, the world has calmed down considerably, in that we are no longer 500 trades from doom. Our Congresspeople will work through the weekend to hammer out a plan that enough of them can agree on to get passed, so I can look forward to the antics at 9 pm with anticipation. I hope Candidate McCain plans to play fighter pilot. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2008-09-26 19:10 |
| #14 Mr Mercutio The question you have to ask yourself is which one of both candidates will handle Al Quaida a giant propaganda victory (meaning that nobody will ever want to tip American forces againts terrorists after seeing what hapenned to Irakis after the second "Saigon embassy" episode. The question you have to ask yourself is which one is the likelier to prevent you and your childen getting killed through Iran getting nukes and, say, handling them to terrorists. |
| Posted by: JFM 2008-09-26 17:40 |
| #13 Sherry__ I have done, as I usually do. Bottom line, my candidate made a play and wasn't able, for whatever reasons, including donk politicking, to follow thru on it. From the outside, it looks bad. period. Then he reneged on his promise to stick with it until there was a deal. And he didn't. No matter how you cut it that doesn't play well. Not to me and not to the independents who haven't yet made up their minds. |
| Posted by: Mercutio 2008-09-26 17:20 |
| #12 McCain's greatest fault is that he wants to do the right thing. As we're all seeing, that can be a crippling short-coming in the political world, where bastardy is rewarded and the naked and ferocious pursuit of self-interest is the safest tactic. Watch 'em. Those horrible bastards Dodd and Frank will come out of this as elder fucking statesmen. With hundreds of millions of dollars for ACORN's street samurai. |
| Posted by: Mitch H. 2008-09-26 16:30 |
| #11 Consider, he was a "bump on a log" 'cause it was Obama that was the "leader" of the Dems, and the one that created the fight.... Bush turned the meeting over first to The Nancy and Harry, who turned it to The One. The rest was downhill from there. Obama was so bad, he hit all the cable shows immediately, even surprising Brit with suddenly wanting to be on! So, yea, McCain probably did sit quiet while all of that was going on. Like a fighter pilot, observing the enemy. Read around the web, and get some facts. |
| Posted by: Sherry 2008-09-26 16:25 |
| #10 Bottom line is he made the assertion he was going back to help. He needed to take control or make some progress to back that up and he didn't. Bump on a log is my assessment of results not the media's democratic message. |
| Posted by: Mercutio 2008-09-26 15:53 |
| #9 "the bump on a log" is a media creation.... First report I read last night, stated McCain asked questions -- seems Obama took lead of the meeting (by Democrats giving the lead to him), completely screwed up, which led to the fighting.... again, misleading information from Dems and the press..... |
| Posted by: Sherry 2008-09-26 15:32 |
| #8 Agreed. I applauded the "screw the campaign, the country comes first" move, but sitting like a bump on a log in the meeting didn't help and going back on his promise to deal with the crisis first and worry about debates later does hurt him. Should have stayed in DC and used some of that famous temper of his to beat some sense into the lackwits in Congress. Also agree that Palin looked inept in the Couric interview.... of course that's just the clips that have been released by the network. No idea what the rest of the interview looked like that they decided not to show..... Still voting against Obama though - no question there. |
| Posted by: Mercutio 2008-09-26 15:22 |
| #7 A week is a long time in politics. McCain could have pointed to Bush's collaboration with the Democrats on this handout bill as an example of how he's different from the Bush administration - he doesn't favor taxpayer handouts to businesses that make wrong-way bets with borrowed money. Instead, he tries to help Bush pass this handout bill. What is wrong with this guy? |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2008-09-26 15:15 |
| #6 A week is a long time in politics. |
| Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2008-09-26 15:10 |
| #5 adding Palin's less than impressive showing with Couric She sounded like a numbwit, and what she said was even worse. |
| Posted by: General_Comment 2008-09-26 14:55 |
| #4 McCain's grandstanding was stupid. Asinine even. He thought if he put his maverick stamp on the handout, the country would prostrate itself before him. The fact is that there's no way to prettify this handout. The best thing McCain could have done was distance himself from this septic tank. And what does he do? He jumps right into the tank. This moron is so stupid that if he wins the election anyway, it'll be proof that God has a special place in his heart for simpletons. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2008-09-26 14:13 |
| #3 I disagree Sam. He tried to say "Let's fix this" but Sen. Obama said "Business as usual". McCain is claiming more leads in the polls, but he can't afford to shoot himself in the foot by skipping out on the debate. The Obama campaign would have a field day with that one. |
| Posted by: DLR 2008-09-26 14:12 |
| #2 I share your concerns, YS. Unless the plan all along was to deny BHO prep time for the debates, this could backfire with undecided voters. It doesn't matter if it was the right call or not, in the sense that an effective and competent leader would make the same call (to delay the debates until a plan to address the impending economic crisis had been reached). Sadly, the usual toxic brew of electoral politics and partisanship in DC makes it almost impossible for the real truth to come out. There's just too much spin. As a McCain supporter, I'm also afraid that he looks wishy-washy here. If denying BHO his debate prep time was the original plan, then McCain needs to have a VERY strong performance against BHO to come out net positive here. As you pointed out, adding Palin's less than impressive showing with Couric into the mix puts the McCain campaign on the defensive for right now. I must admit, watching Palin give her answer to Couric's question on the current bailout plan was a little painful, to say the least. They had to know that question was coming so either she needs more media coaching or they need to do better prep work. The MSM's blatant favoritism for BHO is only exacerbating the current situation. I tend to believe that undecideds are more or less naive about the liberal bias in the media, otherwise they would be far less undecided. So all of this works against McCain/Palin. Then again, the media chips have been stacked against conservative candidates for quite some time now and the People have demonstrated a keen ability to see through much of the bias. |
| Posted by: eltoroverde 2008-09-26 13:39 |
| #1 I'm really afraid he's looking wishy washy. I'm conservative and want him to win so if I'm seeing him this way, how do the 'undecided' voters see him? That coupled with Palins weak performance with Couric has me concerned. (What the hell were they thinking sending her to Couric???) Neither of them are coming across solid and Obama is with the help of the MSM. I'm really concerned with losing 'undecided' voters. Lets pray the debates play out well. On the other hand with McCain and Obama going to DC, Obama was denied his 3 days of preparation and practice for the debate - something the MSM headlined earlier this week. Maybe that was McCain's Machiavellian plan and maybe that is why Obama was relucant to go. |
| Posted by: Yosemite Sam 2008-09-26 12:55 |