When I heard McCain had suspended his campaign to work on the economic crisis, I thought he had made a brilliant move. McCain is weak on the economy and needs to distinguish himself in a favorable light. His suspension connected so well with his narrative of “country first” sacrifice, and reinforced his positions on the war and his delay of the convention in the face of hurricane Gustav. I remember the conversation well. I lamented Obama’s lack of aggression, and my co-worker agreed with me that the man needed to step things up.
Then he responded (Amanda, Think Progress, emphasis mine):
Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) just gave a press conference responding to Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) suggestion that they both suspend their campaigns, postpone Friday’s debate in Mississippi, and return to Washington to deal with the financial crisis. Obama said that he would like to the debate to go forward as planned because “it is going to be part of the president’s job to deal with more than one thing at once”
That powerful and contained a statement deals a sharp blow to McCain’s sacrifice theme. Sacrifice only works politically if you give up something important out of necessity. It’ll backfire in a second if it looks like either the importance or the necessity aren’t genuine.
Which is why McCain’s stumble juggling David Letterman and Katie Couric is devastating (Amanda, Think Progress, emphasis mine):
As part of his plan to suspend his campaign activities, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) today decided to cancel his appearance on the Late Show with David Letterman. McCain’s campaign reportedly told Letterman that the senator was “racing back to Washington.” That, however, didn’t happen. In his show to air tonight, Letterman shows footage of McCain sitting down with CBS’s Katie Couric for an interview at the same time he was supposed to be on his show.
You couldn’t find a brighter color to paint McCain’s campaign politically opportunistic.
Obama’s counterpoint and McCain’s dishonesty play directly to McCain’s weakness and Obama’s opposing strength at the same time. John McCain is increasingly viewed as the precise stripe of unethical politician he once fought against. He’s a man who goes for political points at any cost. Barack Obama is definining himself as a politician who tries to approach problems rationally and seriously, putting the demands of the problem at hand above the political cost of doing so.
A politician’s greatest responsibility alongside governance is maintaining a connection to the people he or she represents. The debates this friday are a central part of that, and thanks to a quick and effective response, heading in its advantage Obama.
Posted under Economy, News, Politics
This post was written by Dan on September 25, 2008
I agree that McCain’s move to suspend his campaign was brilliant on his part in terms of making sure he was completely and fully behind his “country first” motto/mantra. However, the move he made that was NOT so smart on his part was asking for tomorrow night’s debate to be postponed.
Barack put it nicely when he essentially said that a President has MANY things to deal with. By asking tomorrow night’s debate to be postponed McCain comes off looking scared and afraid of meeting with Barack to discuss issues like the economy that we the voters NEED to hear when we’re trying to decide which of these two men to make our next President.
Not only that, but by asking to postpone tomorrow night’s debate, McCain also comes off looking like he can’t handle more than one thing. Again, a part of the President’s job is to be able to multi-task MANY different things rather than focusing solely or primarily on one thing and putting everything else on the “back burner.”
Erin,
I think that’s very insightful. If he hadn’t moved to cancel the debate, he’d come off looking a lot better. As it is he looks frightened and incompetent.
Something else that dawned on me last night was that by also doing what he did with suspending his campaign and asking for tonight’s debate to be postponed is that he (McCain) completely took credit for something that was Barack’s idea.
I’ll just clarify briefly what I’m saying. Barack was the one who in fact called McCain (and called him at I believe 8:30am yesterday morning). However, he was unable to reach McCain. It then took McCain SIX HOURS to return a phone call! SIX HOURS! Then when McCain DID return the phone call he at first said he agreed with Barack’s proposal of making a joint statement about what they discussed.
What does he do though 10 minutes after getting off the phone with Barack? He holds an immediate press conference to say he’s suspending his campaign, asks the debate to be postponed, and says he and Barack will be making a joint statement. Barack had NO idea this was going on in the TWENTY minutes it took him to get back to his hotel and of course all happened in the 20 minutes since he spoke with McCain.
I know I probably shouldn’t peddle or plug a political movie on here, but Michael Moore points it out VERY nicely at the end of his new film Slacker Uprising where he says that Republicans know they came very close to losing it all in the 2004 election and that the next time around they won’t be so lucky. This stunt that McCain pulled on Wednesday is just further proof of that statement Moore makes at the end of his documentary.