Is this the end of Little Johnny?
So, John McCain’s campaign has been in trouble for the last week or so, as Palin’s popularity has plummeted, his bestest buddy turns out to be (surprise, surprise) collecting hundreds of thousands of dollars for nothing other than assuring that investment banks will have inside access to a McCain White House, and he and pretty much everyone around him have been vomiting gaffes as if their common sense had been up all night shotgunning ipecac. The economic situation others here have been covering well (and I’ve been avoiding, out of sheer terror) is turning into McCain’s worst enemy.
And now, he’s suspending his campaign until some sort of bandaid is signed into law. Nobody appears to be fooled by this gambit.
So now, I ask, with all due sincerity, is there any way in the world for McCain to win this election?
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It looks like curtains to me, but I’m a horrible prognosticator. Seriously, I’m sick of this crisis du jour shit. I also suspect that the world will not end if we didn’t bail out Wall Street billionaires. BTW: “he and pretty much everyone around him have been vomiting gaffes as if their common sense had been up all night shotgunning ipecac.” Nicely done!
Mr. Doom and Gloom here to tell you that the answer is, regrettably, yes.
Things sure are trending badly for him these days (per here, here and here, among other places), but we’re still a long way off from election day. A lot can happen between then and now, and Obama’s current lead is far from insurmountable.
I didn’t think anyone was fooled by McCain’s latest stunt, but then I realized I was watching MSNBC and not Fox. Spend some time watching that still highly-rated “news” outlet and there becomes some method to McCain’s madness.
The more the economy dominates the news, the worse John the Third fares… gaffes like the ignorance of the # of homes he owns show he’s out of touch and unconcerned with economic matters. By seemingly shutting down all political operations to focus on solving the problem, he paints himself as more deeply concerned about solutions than Obama. And when Congress finally does pass something — which it will — then McCain can take credit for forging the solution in a way that Obama can’t.
The suspension also allows his campaign to save some money without seeming bereft of cash. The media loves to cover the horse race, and they’d eat up any financial troubles the campaign could find itself in. He’s getting outraised by Obama… to keep up with the spending without going bankrupt, he needs the sort of a reprieve this suspension will give him,
Should McCain’s plan actually work and the debate get delayed the way his camp has requested, it will push back the date of the VP debate, and by all accounts that’s a boon to the McCain camp: Palin appears to need as much time as humanly possible to get ready for that.
Not long from now, even if this ploy by McCain does in fact backfire (which it certainly may), Congress will pass some sort of big bailout bill. By passing a huge bill now rather than addressing each collapse as they happen one by one, it will help push the economy to the background somewhat. And what will come in to fill its space? Well let me see here… North Korea seems to be back into pursuing nuclear, and no doubt between now and November there will be some other foreign policy crises that play to McCain’s perceived strengths.
Will it be enough to get him over the top? Doubtful, but possible. I keep reminding myself to subtract at least one percentage point from Obama in every state because I don’t trust GOP chicanery with voting results. When I do that and play with the electoral map, I keep winding up with a 269-269 tie. Small swing states like New Hampshire and New Mexico could be huge, and as we’ve seen, the electorate can move pretty quickly in one direction or another pretty fast these days — Obama gained, what, 9 points in a single week?
So in conclusion: Yes, it’s possible McCain can win this election, which is why we can’t afford to rest on our laurels. I plan on distributing this flier in my area in the coming weeks, among other things.
Oh yeah, forgot to also give you props on the ipecac line. Truly brilliant prose.
Thanks for providing the sober counterpoint, Ben! We all need a little Jerome Armstrong every now and then!
You’re right, of course. There’s still much to be done, and things could still swing back. Your observation that the bailout could take the economy off the media table is right on, and rather scary.
There are a couple of quibbles I have, though. First, SUSA already did a poll on whether or not the debate should be delayed, and only 10% of those polled agreed with McCain. Fox News notwithstanding, early signs are pointing to this scheme floating like a lead balloon. I’ve read some speculation that the whole thing was an elaborate plan to cancel the VP debate altogether (McCain wanted to push off the first Presidential debate to the scheduled date of the VP debate, and worry about rescheduling the VP debate later) in order to keep Palin from facing anything other than softball questions before the election. It seems plausible to me, but frankly, if McCain pulls out of Friday’s debate while Obama stays in, McCain looks like a coward (which is especially problematic, since he’s been hounding Obama for months about his cockamamie town hall meetings). As a friend said, Obama could just sit there taking questions and debating empty air in a couple of days, and it’d make great political theater. With the new media narratives of “McCain can’t stop lying” and “McCain is desperate and will say anything to win” taking hold, this looks like a panicky flail, and I’ll go out on a limb and say that anybody who is fooled by it was either already in the tank for McCain or never would have been able to pull the lever for Obama on election day, for whatever reason.
As for this allowing McCain to save money, it’s true that he’s being outraised by Obama, but he’s also coordinating closely with the RNC (thanks to loopholes in his own campaign finance law), which is collecting money hand over fist. The McCain/RNC combination has a small fundraising advantage and a large cash-on-hand advantage over Obama/DNC, and though McCain is pulling his ads, you can bet the RNC will redouble their advertising for as long as McCain’s campaign is still suspended.
These quibbles aside, I’m actually in agreement with you that the election isn’t quite a lock. As optimistic as I am, I’ll never be able to forget how much my 2004 optimism exacerbated the pain.
“this looks like a panicky flail, and I’ll go out on a limb and say that anybody who is fooled by it was either already in the tank for McCain or never would have been able to pull the lever for Obama on election day”
Excellent point.
“early signs are pointing to this scheme floating like a lead balloon”
Excellent metaphor.
And yet somehow, over 40% of likely/registered voters still support McCain. That fact alone is what makes me most nervous. It should be more like 35% considering the lies, the economy, and everything else.
But as Mrs. Katherine Anne Fortney recently pointed out to me, many conservatives become more convinced they’re right the more they’re shown to be wrong.
If we go by Gore’s and Kerry’s polling numbers at this stage in the election, things look good for us, even if we account for successful GOP disenfranchisement tactics.
Of course, they could have improved upon them since 2004.
But I’m still hopeful. If McCain’s shenanigans come off as anything other than comedy, I’ll be sorely disappointed in my fellow Americans.
I think Obama has successfully called McCain’s bluff. Suspend the campaign? That’s an easy one — it took him all of an hour and a half to come out and say “um, no, we’re not doing that.” I’m just impressed Obama managed to get through the press conference without rolling his eyes. The debate commission says the debate will go forward; now it’s on McCain to either skip it and let Obama have the stage to himself, or show up and contradict himself. It was a transparently desperate move, and the only advantage McCain has in making it is that the media often have trouble distinguishing “desperate” from “bold.” (How’d “bold” work out on his VP pick?)
The latest polling already shows a huge gap between the candidates when it comes to voters’ confidence in their ability to handle the economy, so Obama’s much better positioned to make the case that not only is it possible to handle the campaign and the bailout at the same time, but that it’s even more important now for voters to hear from the candidates. By supsending his campaign to focus on the financial crisis, isn’t McCain essentially saying he’s too busy handling important grownup stuff to be distracted by us little people who couldn’t possibly understand the situation, much less play a role in addressing it? Seems to me people want to be in the loop on this one.
Between Obama’s measured, competent tone and McCain’s sky-is-falling panic, which do you think will inspire confidence in voters?
I suppose it comes down to a question of the extent to which, and the way in which, you assume voters will respond to fearmongering: If we’re talking about terrorism and national security, history shows they’ll usually run to the candidate who stokes those anxieties and promises to hurt the bad men who are out to get us.
But when we’re talking about economics? Or any other kind of “crisis” that doesn’t boil down to good guys & bad guys, that we can’t bomb our way out of? Maybe I’m naive, but I think people want the guy who seems like he knows what he’s talking about and isn’t going to freak out at the first sign of trouble, and who’s able to communicate in a somewhat convincing way to the rest of us that, one way or another, it’s going to be all right. John McCain continues to project the impression that he only knows how to respond to a crisis by retreating into a bunker and ordering airstrikes.
While the election is far from being in the bag, Obama is the clear winner of this round. This is what he wins on.
“I’m just impressed Obama managed to get through the press conference without rolling his eyes.”
Amen to that.
I agree Obama’s coming out as the winner on this. The election is far from in the bag — there are just too many places that keep refusing to turn blue, for whatever reason — but I certainly do like how things are trending at the moment.
As it turns out, when McCain said he would suspend his campaign, he didn’t mean it, since his ads are still running, his people are all over the TV, he’s making several media appearances tonight, his online fundraising’s still going, his campaign offices are still running, etc. Looks like the whole thing was about avoiding the debate, and he’s not even trying to make it look otherwise.
Well now that the debate’s over, I have a much better sense of why he was trying to avoid it. Obama may not have “won” in a complete landslide, but all evidence suggests that he made large inroads on people’s perceptions of his understanding and preparedness. McCain had very little to gain from a debate about foreign policy unless he obliterated Obama, underscoring his experience. But Obama more than held his own, effectively eliminating the whole “not ready from day 1″ attacks.
At this point I’d things are looking absolutely spectacular for Obama. The only thing that could cost him this election a this point would be another “cling to guns and religion” remark (right or wrong, it doesn’t play well) or some as-yet-undiscovered skeleton in his closet.
I’m more optimistic and encouraged now than I have been since Obama took Iowa. w00t!
During the debate, I felt like Obama was not hitting McCain hard enough. The only real blow he hit occurred when he launched his “wrong” about Iraq litany. And, fer chrissakes, stop agreeing w/your opponent!
What I forgot is that, to a large portion of the electorate, Obama is as inexperienced as Palin. Many people were impressed w/how he comported himself. (Personally, I think Obama can do better.) It’s sort of akin to Palin coming out and speaking in complete sentences: many would be surprised.
Finally, McCain didn’t help himself with the lizard lips routine. I swear, if a fly flew near him he would have scarfed it down. And he wouldn’t look Obama in the eye, which, to me, betrays fear on his part. I’m feeling pretty good, even if I didn’t get my wish of seeing McCain melt down completely under the withering force of Obama’s superior arguments.
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