TChris: "Why would McCain attack Obama in front of a national audience when he knows it will drive away voters?"

He'll do it because it's his destiny. As that pastor who delivered in the invocation to one of his rallies said, God's reputation is now on the line.

He'll be willing to take a huge risk since this is probably his last chance to win what he believes is rightly his.

The only question is, what will he do?  It really could be anything.  Whatever he believes has a chance to take down Obama.

1.  The MSM is just desperate to make this thing seem closer so they can be relevant.  The talking heads will call the debate a McCain win.

2.  Just by some reversion to mean effect, McCain will have a better debate and Obama a worse one.  I mean they're due!

3.  If you're still in the shrinking "undecided" pool, you're probably looking for any reason not to vote for Obama.  So, the insta-polls of undecided voters will break somewhat for McCain for the first time.

4.  The MSM idiots will use that feedback loop to start talking about "comeback", "tightening", etc.

5.  Since we get what seems like 50 polls a day, at least 1 of them WILL show some tightening, and that's the storyline for a while.

6.  Of course, none of the above matters, and Obama wins by 4-6 points on Election Day rather than the 8-10 points everyone is thinking about right now.

Ooh, here's a nice sample:

"He's neither-nor," said Ricky Thompson, a pipe fitter who works at a factory north of Mobile, while standing in the parking lot of a Wal-Mart store just north of here. "He's other. It's in the Bible. Come as one. Don't create other breeds."

Mindblowing Idiocy:  NYT

triple dog dare you...

His ego is in tatters and Obama laid down the gauntlet last week suggesting that McCain didn't have the cojones to bring it up to his face and saved this nonsense for behind his back.

For all of his faults, and there are many, John McCain's ego is supreme and it is eating at his sole that he not only is going to lose this election but he will lose big time.

Give it a few weeks and his revisioning will have him blaming George W. Bush for his loss saying that he couldn't overcome the hand that GWB dealt him.

The alternative is the status quo which isn't good for McCain.  We've already seen that when they don't try to rock the boat in debates, Obama comes out the victor.

If he can get Obama to sound like he's fudging on his past association with Ayers - well, that's all he needs to attack Obama as trying to dodge the question, cover up his past.

The McCain strategy is, that if he can create doubt on this - then that creates an opening to create doubt on everything, then then ballgame is wide open again.

If I were McCain, I'd not only mention Ayers, I'd mention Rezko for good measure, and try to tie him (and Obama by association) to the mortgage collapse & economic crisis.  

In the last debate, the only time McCain scored points was when Obama repeatedly sidestepped McCain's question about whether Obama's health plan included expensive fines.  Of course, it doesn't, but I think it hurt Obama when he didn't make a direct response to McCain's attack.  I still don't understand why Obama didn't answer.

If McCain makes an Ayers attack, and Obama doesn't answer, we could see the race tighten.

But, I think that an Ayers attack will only work if McCain does a good job of explaining who Ayers is (most people still don't know). Maybe McCain can give a nice, heart-warming story of the man who (purportedly) died as a result of one of Ayers' bombings.  Followed by: "And, my friends, Senator Obama thought it was okay to pal around with him!"

I wouldn't worry about that senario too much, though.

If McCain brings up Ayers, he will probably forget to explain who he is, which will leave 85 percent of people totally in the dark.

The only people who know who Ayers is, really, are people on the left, the wingnuts on the right, and the McCain inner circle.  For most Americans, if you asked who Bill Ayers is, you'd get a blank stare.  

All in all though, I think Obama would have to have a major misstep to screw this thing up.  He has come a long way from the first primary debate, so I don't see that happening.

Option 1: attack Obama for his personal associations.

Result: Obama scolds McCain for trying to distract voters -- says the middle class needs results, not attacks.  McCain could say that he avoided the question, but the public would see it as Obama rising above mud slinging.

Option 2: have a normal debate

Result: Obama wins the debate, per the last 2.