McCain's Last Stand

By TChris, Section Elections 2008
Posted on Tue Oct 14, 2008 at 10:54:45 PM EST
Tags: (all tags)

Share This: Digg!

Remember when the McCain campaign told us that the candidate didn't speak for the campaign? Does he ever?

The campaign zigs, McCain zags. The campaign initiates a full throttle attack on Obama's association with Bill Ayers, and McCain ignores Ayers in two dull debates. Then, taking note of polls showing that the negative campaigning has backfired, the campaign gropes for a change of strategy by trying to find a way to make McCain look credible on the economy. And so McCain decides that the last debate is the perfect time to talk about Ayers.

Why would McCain attack Obama in front of a national audience when he knows it will drive away voters? [more ...]

Ayers may well come up at the third debate, McCain told the Mark Reardon Show of St. Louis radio station KMOX. "I was astonished to hear him (Obama) say that he was surprised that I didn't have the guts to do that," McCain said. "I think he's probably assured that it's going to come up this time."

Bait taken? As Marc Ambinder writes:

Suddenly dumping on Obama's character and associations in the middle of the worst economic crisis since the great depression smells cheap and desperate.

Cheap and desperate and maybe, if we're lucky, a bit angry.

< Action Alert : Biogen Denying Cancer Drug to Fred Baron | The Polls - 10/15 >

Legal

Nothing on this site should be construed as legal advice. TalkLeft does not give legal advice.

TalkLeft is not responsible for and often disagrees with material posted in the comments section. Read at your own risk.

McCain's Last Stand | 27 comments (27 topical)

Readers Must Login or Create an Account to Comment

Maybe he's self-immolating for the (5.00 / 2) (#1)
by ThatOneVoter on Tue Oct 14, 2008 at 10:58:49 PM EST

greater good.

Wasn't there a Warren Beatty (none / 0) (#24)
by ruffian on Wed Oct 15, 2008 at 08:05:49 AM EST

movie about a candidate that ran against his own campaign? Maybe McCain will start rapping tonight. That would be awesome.


: "Bulworth"..... (5.00 / 0) (#29)
by kdog on Wed Oct 15, 2008 at 08:58:48 AM EST

great flick....though the Beatty character ignored his handlers and started dropping some straight truth, hardly comparable to McCain.
A McCain freestyle would more than likely revolve around bombing a country full of brown people for kicks.

can't wait (5.00 / 3) (#2)
by Lil on Tue Oct 14, 2008 at 11:00:18 PM EST

for this to all be over.

: But only if we win, of course. (5.00 / 2) (#3)
by Lil on Tue Oct 14, 2008 at 11:06:05 PM EST

Why? (5.00 / 2) (#16)
by TomStewart on Wed Oct 15, 2008 at 01:26:23 AM EST

Because Obama is all over his lawn, driving his riding mower, doing doughnuts on his foreign policy, and eating his economic lunch. This has ceased to be about the election, and had become all about McCain's ego and sense that America owes him the presidency.

McCain is still dangerous (5.00 / 0) (#19)
by barryluda on Wed Oct 15, 2008 at 05:56:02 AM EST

Like an angry dog backed into a corner.

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.

I will be so glad when this debate is over and I'm just listening to the spin on both sides of what will, hopefully, be another boring night. But, like a blowout boring baseball game, it's not over until the last out.

Predicting the debate: (5.00 / 1) (#20)
by steviez314 on Wed Oct 15, 2008 at 06:32:34 AM EST

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.
Just by some reversion to mean effect, McCain will have a better debate and Obama a worse one. I mean they're due!
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.
The MSM idiots will use that feedback loop to start talking about "comeback", "tightening", etc.
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.
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.

On the other hand, none of the above is true, Obama has another A+ debate, McCain has his "get off my lawn" moment, and we're all set for the next 20 days barring the old "Bush lets Israel bomb Iran" scenario.

NYT (5.00 / 0) (#25)
by lilburro on Wed Oct 15, 2008 at 08:16:34 AM EST

front page this morning (online) is all about race. I am almost hoping that the moderator of tonight's debate asks McCain about all the racial slurs and ugliness of his recent rallies. But I doubt he will. The moderator is Bob Schieffer, the guy that was so offput by Clark's questioning of McCain's credentials this summer.

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

w...t...f...

I dare you (none / 0) (#4)
by white n az on Tue Oct 14, 2008 at 11:29:57 PM EST

double dog dare you...

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.

Rest assured that he will bring up Ayers in the debate tomorrow night and take his pounding because he figures he's got nothing more to lose and a defeated 'warrior' will always take a cheap shot.

: and (5.00 / 1) (#26)
by connecticut yankee on Wed Oct 15, 2008 at 08:23:11 AM EST

THe easy counterpunch from Obama is the blah blah blah, ayers is a nobody, followed by,
"Ive never been scolded in any ethics matters, unlike Sen. McCain's ticket. The senate ethics committe found him guilty of "bad judgement" and his running mate Sarah Palin was just found guilty of "abuse of power". So they might doing a little projecting here"

: This (none / 0) (#13)
by cal1942 on Wed Oct 15, 2008 at 12:54:48 AM EST

sort of reminds me of the challenge in the OJ Simpson trial concerning the gloves.
The prosecutor (can't remember his name) bought it hook line and sinker and took a challenge he couldn't win.
In the Seinfeld version Kramer was dumb enough to take the challenge.

simple (none / 0) (#7)
by Howard Zinn on Wed Oct 15, 2008 at 12:04:35 AM EST

if McCain attacks there's a small chance he'll get a "knock-out" and a moderate bump in the polls (at least he's telling himself that). Of course there's a much greater chance that McCain will come across as, well, McCain + angry, which isn't attractive to anyone, as polls show.

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.

I bet McCain will be very aggressive on policy and leave the personal stuff behind. He'll still lose.

Let's see . . . . McCain's last stand or . . . (none / 0) (#11)
by nycstray on Wed Oct 15, 2008 at 12:26:18 AM EST

Project Runway season finale? I know what I'll be watching ;) Oh, and a girl wins, lol!~

: Phillies v. Dodgers, (none / 0) (#15)
by oculus on Wed Oct 15, 2008 at 01:17:16 AM EST

Wed., 5:22 p.m. EDT.

Thread cleaned of off-topic smear (none / 0) (#17)
by Jeralyn on Wed Oct 15, 2008 at 01:59:25 AM EST

against Obama. Blue Merlin will be banned if s/he repeats such attacks.

This is why McCain will attack: (none / 0) (#18)
by vector on Wed Oct 15, 2008 at 05:27:45 AM EST

McCain doesn't need a knock out punch. He just needs to create doubt among the undecideds.

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.

Heh. (5.00 / 2) (#21)
by LarryInNYC on Wed Oct 15, 2008 at 07:14:23 AM EST

McCain doesn't need a knock out punch.

McCain needs a knockout punch, a meteor strike, and the expulsion of New York and California from the electoral college, all within the next three weeks.


: As Jim Carey said in Dumb and Dumber (none / 0) (#23)
by coast on Wed Oct 15, 2008 at 07:32:07 AM EST

"So you're saying there is a chance". As a Repug, I have very little to hold on to right now.

Maybe (none / 0) (#30)
by sj on Wed Oct 15, 2008 at 10:34:36 AM EST

I still don't understand why Obama didn't answer.

Obama is not, by nature, a policy wonk. Under the circumstances he may not have had mental access to the details of his plan.

If I weren't sure I'd get the details right I would keep mum, too. I know that for a fact. I've been in the position where I've drawn a blank. Publicly.

This is one thing I don't hold against him.


I would love it if (none / 0) (#22)
by coast on Wed Oct 15, 2008 at 07:29:27 AM EST

the moderater brought up Ayers and then just the two go at. As someone on the right, I think the Ayers association is not nearly as damaging as Obama's association with the good Rev. Wright. Obama had a closer and longer lasting relationship with the Rev. and I think it would have been much harder to defend, especially when every station would have been playing clip after clip of his sermons. As other posters have said above, I don't think many know or care about Ayers. I think rather than attacking Obama directly McCain should just say that Obama has associated with many questionable people and ask where does he (Obama) draw a line. McCain should preface this with the fact that he knows all too well that associations do matter (Keating).

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.

I don't think election day is going to see the 10-14 point margin some polls are showing, but I do think he wins by 6-8%.

: Association with Reverend Wright (none / 0) (#31)
by sj on Wed Oct 15, 2008 at 10:41:16 AM EST

The problem with stirring that pot, is that if they keep reminding people about Reverend Wright, it makes it harder to subliminally stoke the "Obama is a Muslim" fear. It's a very fine line the smear-miesters have to walk.

: If they bring it up.... (none / 0) (#33)
by kdog on Wed Oct 15, 2008 at 12:13:50 PM EST

I'd love for Obama to counter with..."So John, tell us about your relationship with known drug and gun runner Ollie North...if you insist on talking about professional acquaintances that is, or we could just talk about the issues of the day...how 'bout that?"
If you took a grand tally of shady acquaintances, I think McCain wins that dubious honor....by the sheer fact he's been in the slime business that much longer than Obama....simple math.

could someone explain to me (none / 0) (#27)
by Howard Zinn on Wed Oct 15, 2008 at 08:26:27 AM EST

what, exactly, McCain could do to gain some traction here. He's damned if he does, damned if he doesn't.

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.

Am I missing something here? Surely Obama is prepared for anything McCain could throw at him.

McCains last stand (none / 0) (#32)
by drdem on Wed Oct 15, 2008 at 10:57:45 AM EST

I was listening to the "Oral Dribble" that
Palin was spewing in New hampshire about the
Washington elite , the insiders everything she was saying about Obama was in actuality pointed toward
McCain !! I've said it once , I'll say it again she's an Idiot !! She needs to go back to Alaska
and go back to Moosehunting !!!

DEBATE (none / 0) (#34)
by RAMSHA on Wed Oct 15, 2008 at 03:32:55 PM EST

McCain has painted himself in to a corner. If he attacks Obama viciously as he had done earlier, in the campaign, he is going to turn off the remaining undecided voters. If he toots his loud horn about his military connections and POW days and as Tina Fey put it his "Mavericky" achievements people are going to say "Not that again". His actions, speeches and plans have demonstrated his erratic nature that he has been known for. His running mate's image as an attack dog with skeletons in her own closet is not helping either. But I admire him for where he has finally arrived in his life with relatively a low IQ and academic achievement. Good luck MAC.

well (none / 0) (#35)
by connecticut yankee on Wed Oct 15, 2008 at 04:35:32 PM EST

McCain becomes a liar the moment he mentions it. The right wing talking point is itself a lie. They only take the first half-sentence of Obama's response and then cast that as his only comment. They also usually add "just" to the "guy in my neighborhood" line, which has been erroneously repeated by some news sources.

It's pap for morons and it's easy to show that.