Before we get to the Fourth Huge Gimmick of McCain's campaign, which I see as a kind of "chicken-axis" around which the current games are being played (the four big gimmicks: 1. gax tax holiday, 2. gotta cancel the first day of the Repub convention when Bush & Cheney are scheduled to speak because of Hurricane Ike, 3. The Alaskan Wonder, 4. "I'm suspending my campaign and we should forego the debate")...let's review quickly what he is trying to distract us from:
The Fundamentals of Our Economy Are Strong.
Here's a starter timeline on McCain's statements/actions on the financial crisis. Please note: As of Tuesday, he hadn't even read the Paulson bailout proposal (all of three pages!). Here's a great review of how the campaign-obsessed media didn't see the crisis coming.
Quick, Look Over Here! No, No, No, Don't Ask Me About...
- Sleazy Lobbying and Lying. Wednesday morning, McCain was hit with more actual reporting on his campaign manager's relationship and influence peddling with FannieMae/Freddie Mac (guess what, his campaign manager Rick Davis is STILL an officer of his "former" company, which was getting 15k/month to do nothing but maintain access for the mortgage companies to John McCain, and the campaign lied about it repeatedly). When asked, they didn't deny it...but very soon after came the distractions...
- The fact that people are backing away from McPain, slowly: ABC News/Wash Post poll that showed Obama up 9 points and making huge strides with independents and white women voters. Just one of many good data points: "Over the past two weeks, the percentage of independents with favorable views of Palin dropped from 60 percent to 48 percent." And it's not just in the national polls--state polls, such as this one in Colorado, show that people are reacting negatively to Palin and moving toward Obama. And then, there's this: Obama now holds a double-digit lead on the question who's better to lead in this crisis.
- Keating Who? Also, we can't have ONE DRAMA-FREE MOMENT BECAUSE PEOPLE MIGHT REMEMBER that guess who...John McCain...was involved in the last major financial scandal in the US. If you need a refresher on McCain and the Keating 5 Savings and Loan scandal, you can watch a 97 second video right here. For a little perspective--the Keating 5 cost the US $3 billion....
So...time for another hail mary pass! McCain decides that he--he who hasn't been to vote in the Senate since APRIL (even Tim Johnson, stroke victim, has voted more than McCain)--needs to swoop in and save us all. Wed. afternoon, he calls for a suspension of his campaign--which he did by appearing all three nightly news shows, grandstanding, allowing his surrogates to continue to attack Obama, running ads, and actually not suspending on-the-ground campaign activities AT ALL--and for the debate to be postponed. Better yet, later that day, the McCain campaign suggested that the VP debate be rescheduled, and the first debate should take place on Oct 2...that's right, they don't want us to hear her at all!
And there's good reason why. Her Wed night interview with Katie Couric has been widely panned, and her poll numbers have continued to decline. Now almost 50% say she's not prepared to be vice president. You can watch the pain here. And then today she spoke off the cuff with reporters for a few minutes at the site of the World Trade Center...here's some more pain. And here's a video of one of her spiritual leaders, who is an honest to god witchhunter, laying hands on her, casting out evil, and praying for her political ascension.
But don't look or read or think about any of that! I agree with some of the pundits who say that this latest stunt is pure Rove politics...just try to win each day's newscycle at any cost. And to some extent they won yesterday, because they moved the sleazy lobbyist story off the headlines, and barely anybody was talking about Palin at the UN (described as "speed dating world leaders"), or the lame media revolt trying to make sure they could actually have a reporter in the room during her meetings and not just a camera...They also were able to bury Campbell Brown (CNN) actually stating "Free Sarah Palin!" as she protested what she interprets as McCain's sexism in not letting Palin speak to the press.
I'm Needed in Warshington! I'm A Hero, Dammit!
Last night, the media response and the public polling showed that this gambit had largely been seen as a gimmick (although today many were still blithely saying that McCain had suspended his campaign, even tho he clearly had changed nothing). And then lo and behold, George W. Bush all-of-a-sudden thought it would be a good idea to have the candidates (even tho Harry Reid had said stay away, it's not productive for presidential politics to get injected into this situation) come to D.C. and have a nice photo op. Made for a lot of pretty pictures of McCain in the Senate...where, did I mention...he hasn't voted since APRIL! So a meeting was scheduled for today.
Obama said, "No." And "the president has to be able to do more than one thing at a time."
There was some biting humor, in the midst of the drama, last night, when McCain tried to ditch Letterman by saying he had to run to DC and save the economy, but Letterman wasn't having ANY of it. It's actually pretty good TV. And then McCain actually did an interview with Couric instead. What will this man NOT lie about?
Today, it looked like some kind of compromise had been forged with Dems and Repubs that included accountability measures, a staged rollout of money, help for homeowners, getting a piece of the profits back when these companies revive (I should say "if"!), but did not apparently include bankruptcy reforms, which was a dealbreaker for Repubs. Word was spread around 1-2 pm that things were moving forward. Then McCain swooped into town, had a meeting with House minority whip John Boehner, and all of a sudden Boehner backpedals. In the white house photo op meeting, Boehner starts talking about the "other" core principles agreed upon by House Repubs, which hadn't been seen by anyone...this gummed up the works, and made Chris Dodd and Barney Frank, and the leading Repub senators on the banking committee. Turns out, we learn later, that what McCain wants is more tax breaks and less regulation. SURPRISE.
Here's Chris Dodd being very clear: McCain's posturing has derailed everything with his huge gimmick. "
What happened here, basically, if you want an honest appraisal of the thing, we have been spending a lot of time and I am tired. I have spent almost seven straight days at this in trying to come out with a workout plan for our economy a rescue plan," said Dodd. "What this looked like to me was a rescue plan for John McCain for two hours and took us away from the work we are trying to do today. Serious people trying to do serious work to come up with an answer."
Now it's back to the drawing board, reconvening at 8 p.m. tonight.
For the record, I'm not in favor of the bailout in its current or proposed construction, for all kinds of reasons that I'm sure you've heard about. And I'm in good company on this.
I do think that something needs to be done, and I do think that Dodd and Frank are negotiating in good faith in a horribly impossible situation. I was heartened to hear Dodd last night on one of the shows, and I think the Dems have done a lot to make this a better piece of legislation. In the end, the Republican shenanigans may have bought us a little time to make a better bill. But they are also making the public ever more distrustful of the ability of government to actually work together to come up with solutions. There was movement forward, and now hackery has scuttled it.
What I'm left with is this: I think the ways that McCain has gambled, postured, and distracted throughout the last week (as the epitome of the campaign as a whole) says a good deal about what kind of president he'd be, and how little he trusts the American people...and how little faith he has in Sarah Palin. If there was ever a Manchurian Candidate, I think this would be he.
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