We are hours from the debate’s scheduled start, and the McCain campaign is still silent about its intentions. But for those of you who are unsure what you should plan to do at 9pm ET, it seems fairly certain that there will be some kind of political theater tonight - though whether it is a two-man confrontation or a one-man show needs to be determined.
Obama is heading to Mississippi at 11am, and ABC now reports that there are discussions to transform tonight’s debate into an Obama town hall if McCain does not show up. But would Obama even be allowed to enter the hall? An official from the debate commission told Newsweek that there could be no debate at all if only one candidate were to show up, as that would be an “illegal contribution” to the Obama campaign.
As for McCain, the latest hints were disseminated by Senator Lindsay Graham this morning - and they point towards McCain’s participation. Graham lowered the bar of what could cause McCain to travel to Oxford: “What’s more important than anything is that when we go to Mississippi tonight, both candidates can say that the Congress is working, back in business, that we have an outline or proposal.” An outline is certainly very different from a deal - one can be a general agreement on principle (which seemed to have been reached yesterday afternoon), the other is a detailed plan. This looks like a way for McCain to participate in the debate without looking like a blinked.
Indeed, can McCain afford not to debate? His polls numbers are going south - and if that was not obvious from yesterday’s polling roundup, a fresh batch of surveys out this morning leave no doubt: Obama jumps to a 7% lead in the Diego Hotline tracking and a 5% lead (one of his largest ever) in Rasmussen’s tracking, usually known for his painstakingly small shifts. Two new polls show McCain losing ground in Missouri, a red state his campaign was hoping to have locked in his column by September - something that now seems assured of not taking place.
A trailing candidate needs a debate to get some kind of momentum, and it would be surprising if McCain skips an opportunity to do just that. And as I said last night, it looks like he would have difficulty getting away with it, particularly if Obama holds some kind of public event tonight. If some type of town hall is held featuring Obama and the networks would carry it, the Democrat would have an unbelievable opportunity - and the McCain campaign must know that.
That opens up another interesting question: Did McCain ever actually consider skipping tonight’s meeting, or was this entire stand-off a play his campaign put up to drive up the hype around the debate?
In a sense, McCain has set up an ideal situation for himself: If he goes to Mississippi, he gets to show that he was concerned enough about the country to consider staying in DC and working on a deal and that he ultimately decided that it was too important to talk to the American people to skip the debate. By threatening to not even show up, McCain has created the expectation that tonight’s encounter will benefit Obama and thus stands to gain more out of the always-crucial expectations game.
And by raising the stakes of tonight’s encounter, McCain is hoping that any Obama misstep will be amplified and allow the Republican to make up more ground; sure, McCain could stumble too, but he is the trailing candidate, and he thus has little choice but to go for an all-or-nothing strategy. (And as I said yesterday, this diversion has allowed McCain to get Sarah Palin out of the news just when she became a real liability for the campaign with that Katie Couric interview; today’s Washington Post story that she accepted thousands of dollars worth of gifts while Governor could further damage her reformist credentials.)
Whether McCain actually does get this narrative out of the events of the past 48 hours very much depends on the fate of the bailout plan and how much responsibility he is assigned for last night’s chaos. It also depends on whether he shows up in Mississippi, how many of the questions are devoted to the economy, and how the candidates perform. The next 12 hours will be decisive.
Update: Well, here we go! The debate is on, McCain is heading to Mississippi and a campaign statement announces he ends his “suspension” because “he is optimistic there has been significant progress towards a bipartisan agreement.” That wasn’t at all the benchmark he had set on Wednesday afternoon, which to me suggests that McCain never truly considered not going to the debate - something that is also confirmed by reports that McCain instructed TV stations last night to start rerunning his ads tomorrow (i.e. his campaign had already planned on ending the suspension when it was still trying to keep up the debate about his debate appearance).
So let’s get this straight: McCain suspended his campaign effective yesterday morning; he knew that ads could not be pulled within 24 hours, so they were never really off the air; and he goes to debate without any deal in place. As I argued above - the benefits of a diversion without any of the drawbacks?
Just heard on NPR that the AP reports that McCain will be attending the debate.
I think it’s possible that McCain did intend to skip the debate at some point, but it became clear that the events of the past few days did not create the narrative that he hoped. His move was seen more and more as a political stunt that effectively derailed the bailout negotiations. Thus he had to relent on the gamble, even though he tries to claim victory in his campaign statement.
I’m still curious where McCain will come down on the bailout deal, assuming there is one.
op: The benefits of a diversion without any of the drawbacks?
Or the drawbacks of a diversion without any of the benefits?
People’s perceptions of McCain’s actions will inevitably be seen through the prism of their preexisting biases. McCain supporters will see it as putting the country’s needs over partisan political needs. Obama supporters will see it as a stunt that accomplishes little and as constituting mere political posturing.
The question is how those who have not made up their minds or who might change their minds will see it. Will they really look at what McCain actually did in his trip to DC? (I have seen no reports so far that indicate that he played any role at all.) Will they really look at what McCain actually “suspended”? (It seems that nothing really was suspended in practice.)
People who look only at the form of what McCain did may conclude one thing; those who look at the substance may conclude something else, because his ballyhooed “suspension” seems to have accomplished just about nothing. And if it accomplished nothing, one wonders why he did it in the first place.
I agree with Andy McCain probably did intend to miss the debate but his bluff was called by Obama and the polling that showed the vast majority of Americans want a debate.
It was clear this was a sham and he has been called out - this won’t help his polling. With regartds Palins bad interview and her taking gifts whilst Governor, these details are out and will be repeated regularly so she will take a hit. She is certainly now not an overall positive to the campaign (her faltering favorability numbers show that).
There is really no question about McCain’s actions that they are purely political posturing. He said he was suspending the campaign, but he actually didn’t. And I think he only said — spoke in words — that the debate should be pstoned in order to try to lower expectations and possibly shift attention away from the debate tonight. Also, it became more urgent for him to go ahead with the debate, if he actually meant to postone it, because disastrous Palin interview that will create HUGE liability for him.
The fact that Palin accepted $25,000 in gifts as governor of Alaska is not a surprise to me — I have already concluded a week after her selection as VP that she is merely a “political pick,” as Karl Rove pupportedly put it. She does not understand virtually anything about foreign policy, and for McCain to have her in this time of crisis in our nation is not only a huge, dumb gamble but also an effort to pander to social conservatives and women. Thus, Sarah Palin is more of a “political doll”.
McCain getting back into the debate is a purely political move, like everything else he does… it’s not that he wants to inform Americans or demonstrate his know-how, he just thought thought not showing up to the debates would make him look bad
McCain has gone berserk!