“You actin’ like a little _____ right now” – O-Dog (Menace II Society)
In case you haven’t heard, in light of the recent economic crisis, John McCain has decided to suspend his campaign to try to help solve the problem. Sane people will look at this maneuver and realize it’s a fairly desperate attempt to avoid pwnage in Friday’s debate, but McCain clearly hopes that his campaign can spin it positively. Expect to hear a million surrogates talking up the idea that “McCain is showing he’ll put his country ahead of his campaign.” That sounds nice, but unfortunately, it’s patently false.
McCain’s inability to get any sort of grasp on economic issues (remember: this man has admitted multiple times that he doesn’t understand how the economy works) has lead to an awful performance on the campaign trail the past 2 weeks. With the Palin bounce fading quickly, and even beginning to negatively affect the ticket, they were increasingly desperate. The idea that if McCain returns to Washington to sit in on some meetings and provide his voice, this $700 billion bailout will be hammered through is absolutely laughable. Whether it happens or not, it will not be because of John McCain.
So why did he insist upon suspending the campaign and ducking the first debate on Friday? Simple: he’s getting hammered on the economy. As I’ve blogged about before, anytime an actual important issue or policy is talked about, the Republicans lose. That’s why they want you to worry about flag pin lapels or pigs with lipstick. Once the economy became the main focus, McCain’s campaign went down quicker than his plane dur– no…wait…I’m better than that. Anyway, he’s losing ground all over the place and in order to stop the hemmorraging, he pulled this stunt. It’s akin to calling a timeout when the other team is racking up points, only in this case, you were already out of timeouts. Shouldn’t this be a technical foul? Where’s Chris Webber?
This is not a legitimate reason to suspend your campaign and try to postpone the beatdown you’re going to receive at the first debate. Now, Barack handled this as professionally and stately as possible. He knows exactly what McCain is doing and his remarks above could not have been better. Thankfully, I’m not running for office, so I’ll say it:
For a “war hero,” where is your vaunted courage Senator McCain? Take your beating like a man and go to the first debate on Friday. You’re running scared, but it’s understandable. Barack has Ali-like swag right now, and you’re about to be on the receiving end.
Tags: Barack Obama, beatdown, debate, economy, john mccain, muhammad ali, pwnage, suspend campaign
…but he’s a P.O.W.!
Yo!! Ali was that Ni-…dude. Obama is about to serve McCain on Friday…
You know. I’m not with the bailouts right now. I’ve thought a lot about it, asked a lot of smart people about it. To me it just comes down to. If you’re smart with your money and you make good investments, you should get rewarded and if you make a bad gamble, you should lose.
Protect rich people who make mistakes? no. The whole reason we make mistakes is so we learn from them.
I know that lots of everyday americans will hurt from this. That’s the part I hate. However. If we just print up $700 Billion dollars, That’s going to hurt our economy even more. Either way, I think we just ride this thing out. Once the crash happens, there will be a big rebound because things will get really cheap. Ain’t nobody going to live in a grass hut. .02.
That’s right, Barack… stay on the campaign trail and tell us that you’re going to provide universal healthcare while reducing the national debt. Tell us that you’re going to turn around the economy, yet plan to further stifle the financial markets with an increase on capital gains and estate taxes. Sell us a dream because you know exactly what the average American wants to hear, regardless of how little sense it makes. Naive much?
Ah my dude Blake…this may not be applicable to you, but it is here at least: why do republicans always try to tear down Barack instead of build up their own candidate? Why is your boy McCain ducking the debate? Was he really needed in DC to get this thing done? No. Shook ones, pt. 2.
As I’ve mentioned numerous times, Barack can’t wave a wand and fix everything. But when we see first hand all the problems the Republicans have gotten us into over the past 8 years, it’s laughable that they expect to be reelected. Like John Stewart asked Huckabee, “so you’re saying your party is the only party that can fix all the mistakes you guys have made?”
What’s McCain going to do for the economy? Has he decided if he’s against regulation or for it now?
I refuse to argue with liberals… the only people who risk their lives to save whales, yet think it’s perfectly acceptable to abort a human fetus.
Damn, ducking debates must be contagious.
I don’t really see why you’d post your original thoughts and then decline to defend/elaborate on ’em, but it’s your call. But yeah, with the logic in your last post, we wouldn’t get anywhere anyway, so it’s probably best.
I agree that McCain should stay n the campaign trail and that his going back to Washington is somewhat of a stunt, but I don’t feel like he is doing it just to duck the debate. The debate on Friday is about foreign policy, a topic here McCain has a ton of experience. It has been established that he would have the upper hand in this debate, so I don’t think ducking out on it has any benefit to him. I think this is more of a ploy to make him look like a job first type of guy, not to get him out of a debate that has a good chance to help him.
Just my .02
Yeah, that’s part of it, J…I agree. They definitely want him to look like he’s putting job/country first, but the fact is that he’s not the “missing piece” to this economic puzzle. By going back to Washington and speaking for less than 5 minutes in the meeting they had today, he’s not the person who is going to make, break, or even shape this bailout deal. He can easily fly to Mississippi tomorrow and do this debate, while working on the economic issues as well. That’s what Barack is doing…and it’s perfectly reasonable to expect the candidates to be able to multitask here. That’s part of what presidents do.
I also agree that the perception exists that McCain would have an advantage in a foreign policy debate, but I don’t think it’s actually true. The Republicans have done a masterful job of painting themselves as heroes and the Democrats as weak on foreign policy, when it’s just not based in reality. I think Barack would do a great job debating the topic and while McCain has the advantage in poll numbers there, his campaign knows it would be a chance for Barack to cut into that.
Also, with the economic crisis, it’s not like the economy wouldn’t come up multiple times in the debate. They’re not going to get together and ONLY talk Iraq and Iran. The economy is going to be important, especially considering we’re pumping $10 billion into the war each month. All the topics are tied together, so a foreign policy debate certainly includes lots of economic discussion.
Lastly, there’s the completely superficial aspect of this too. Even though McCain has offered the 10 town hall debates, I don’t think anyone in his camp feels comfortable putting the two side by side physically. Youthful, tall, athletic, intelligent, personable, witty, talkative, articulate guy vs. granpa. Same idea in the Kennedy/Nixon debates. We’re a very uneducated, superficial society. Don’t underestimate how things like that can affect people. The only thing McCain’s camp stands to gain in a physical comparison is to remind “unsure” voters that he’s the white guy.
Saying that he is “suspending his campaign” is complete bullshit. The only things that have been suspended are his commercials and perhaps the odd speech. In terms of political strategizing, he is VERY much still actively campaigning; creating this facade that he is being the bigger man and putting “country first,” “postponing” a presidential debate that would INEVITABLY turn to the economy regardless of predetermined topic and the even mere act of saying he is suspending his campaign are all calculated decisions in an attempt to gain ground. Transparent, desperate and poorly thought out decisions, might I add.
That said, everything he does is right because he’s a P.O.W.
hahahah. Not to mention, campaign offices were called in battleground states today and they all said they were up and running as usual. Some didn’t even have any idea the campaign was “suspended”
I agree with everything you’re saying Hyphen. It’s just that I think suspending the campaign had more to do with making a splash and trying to make a statement about himself than about being scared of the debate. I’m not an expert on presidential debates, but being a foreign policy debate I think economic discussion would be limited. The third Debate at Hofstra is scheduled to talk about the economy. I think Barack would be strong on foreign policy, but McCains experience could put him over the top. Plus, all McCain really needs to do is beat the spread, as the cards are already stacked against him (just how you drew it out to be).
Hyphen, I didn’t come here to debate with you… I check out your blog because we have similar tastes in hip-hop, NOT politics. I should point out first that I don’t endorse McCain, but he’s certainly the lesser of two evils as far as I’m concerned. Sure, Barack seems like a nice enough guy with good intentions, but I don’t agree with Democratic policies, in general, or his positions, specifically. It’s as simple as that. It’s your blog, homie. Now back to the music…