You posted this at 12:01 just so you could officially call it "tonight's debate"?

I actually think that bringing up Ayers would go over better with the talking heads on TV than his refusal to look at Obama last time.  There is, for some reason, a particular fascination that pundits have for body language in debates.  But there's also a strong tendency to declare the winner based on who attacks more, regardless of the truth or effectiveness of those attacks.  If McCain pursues, such a strategy, we'll get predictable lines about how he "took the gloves off" and "really went after Obama" and how Obama was on the defensive, along with the obligatory speculation about Joe Six-Pack will react (he's worried about the economy but doesn't know if he trusts Obama).  The vapid analysis practically writes itself.

Exactly. McCain has used up all of his "shake ups" to the campaign. One more big gamble for him, and he's toast.  

John McCain, running for Drama Queen or for President?

but the risk of option two is the presence of Obama right there on stage, and his ability to look McCain in the eye, or at least in the direction of McCain's averted little beady eyes, and calmly and coolly rebut every ridiculous smear by association.  "Well all I can say John is, Asked and Answered. I guess you probably just weren't paying all that much attention this spring on your private jet and at the barbecues in your eight back yards. Well here's a little two-minute recap: my former pastor said some reprehensible things, and I denounced them. He persisted, and I denounced and rejected him. A guy from my neighborhood, who sat on the same charity boards I did, did some reprehensible things when I was 8. I condemned them. That's it. Now, if you'd like to discuss your friends John Hagee, Rod Parsley, Charles Keating, Oleg Deripaska, Richard Quinn, John Singlaub, and G. Gordon Liddy, then... we might need to add an intermission. How's that for a Town Hall You Can Believe In, John?

I totally disagree.

McCain has already gained any possible benefit from Ayres and Wright -- which is that he has locked down his right wing.

It is the independent vote that he is losing.  And a show of immoderate behavior wouldn't help there.

He should not mention Ayres, Wright, etc.  Zip his lips!  

The  independent public is worried about the economic crisis and foreign threats, and Ayres and Wright have nothing to do with either of those.

What he must do is get control of himself and display a calm, reassuring tone -- a la Franklin Roosevelt.  He even has to show some substantive ideas about regulation and reform, and maybe even about tax fairness, health care and Iraq.  

Essentially, recent events have casused the "vital center" to switch ground.  McCain has to show an appreciation of that center.  He has to show thoughtfulness and gravitas.

I don't think he will and he will lose the debate.

Noam, I'm one of those people who are fooled every time by a price tag of $7.99 - I read it as seven dollars. I saw "debate tonight" and got all excited. I didn't really think it was going to happen before I went to bed, but still. Worked on me!

My predictions:

1. McCain is going to go on crazy offense about the economy, blaming the mortgage crisis on Obama as a liberal who wants every welfare mom to have a home.

2. He'll be mavericky and say he'll cut medicare and medicaid, and be incredibly pompous and brave about it, saying that tough choices need to be made, blah blah blah.

3. He'll look Obama in the eye, but he'll lean back while doing it, because he's afraid that if he looks straight at him he'll be looking up slightly, and that this will make him look short.  

4. I will be yelling at the tv set.

here's the sad thing. the fact that there exists a probability greater than zero that this fear garbage will actually work. it's just as sad at the thing that really brings us to this financial crisis. the fact that ignorant people are milling around in society armed with pens and can be talked into signing contracts that make no sense. you have to have an intelligence level approximating that of a rock for some of this stuff to work and the fact that it is being tried means that there is hope of it being successful.

how can a predator lender exist if there is nothing to prey upon?

this is the sad thing about what you see in the current government. defense of stupidity. anyone willing to say that people need to be protected against predatory lending is supporting stupidity.

so when people get bent out of shape at statements claiming that the country is full of idiots. they have absolutely no leg to stand on. it's a fact. and it's all over the place on tape. admit it folks we live in a nation of idiots. if you are not one of them, you still share some of the responsibility for allowing it to continue. rampant stupidity is nothing to be proud of.

"this is the sad thing about what you see in the current government. defense of stupidity. anyone willing to say that people need to be protected against predatory lending is supporting stupidity."

The problem with this analysis is that ignores two salient facts: first, there are always going to be a significant number of stupid people in the world who will believe that they can afford something they can't possibly pay for, and second, there are plenty of "smart" people in the financial world who are stupid enough to believe that they can take advantage of these folks with impunity to the economy at large.

So, I don't support protection against predatory lending to defend stupidity in the borrowing public, to defend AGAINST stupidity in the lending elite.  The former only ruin themselves, the latter can ruin us all, as recent events come close to demonstrating.

Alas, McCain truly is an erratic old coot.  Tonight I look for him to suspend his dignity.

Pete Beck nails it.

I don't think McCain has that level of maturity and character left in him anywhere. At one time I deeply admired him, warts and all - I had his picture on my wall after Flags of My Fathers and all the way through.  He and Cindy both have defiled thier whole live's work with this campaign.  Its enraging and sad.

Their campaign is llke a cornered dying animal - dangerous. God I hope its put of its misery soon (maybe Palin can hop in her heliocopter and plug it with a 44 Magnum).  The whole circus of the Republican caliope crashing to the ground is ghoulish.  Such a cancer.

All of the above.  You know the story of the scorpion who asks a frog for a ride across a might river, and then stings the frog?  As the frog and the scorpion are both going down, the frog asks, bewildered, "Why'd the hell did you do that, now you kill us both?" The scorpion answers somewhat coolly and somewhat bewildered, "My nature, can't help it."

Wandrey, I know you liked McCain, but the exposé in Rolling Stone is damning; he's always been an erratic temperamental spoiled brat with a huge sense of entitlement.  I don't know if his animus towards Obama is racially motivated, but there is no doubt in my mind that he is going batshit because he can't believe this inexperienced whipper-snapper is runnign rings around him.  I kinda see a bit of McCain in Tep's deranged comments on Obama, in this respect.  

He's a charlatan and a knave; it is in his nature to hit back in anger, to besmirch, to sting.  That was his nature at work when he went to DC and scuttled the first bailout plan. (And now, we have him to thank for $150 billion in pork in the second plan.)  He didn't think what it would do to the US, to the World, to his campaign; he just had to be a shit-disturber.  Thus he has been and thus he will be.  You yourself have wondered how it was that he hired the same people who trashed his family.  That's his nature - who cares about the family if he - HE - advances?  

He will be in the debates how has been in the debates: mean, snarling, disrespectful, belittling - in short, the asshole he is.  It's immaterial what kind of poop oozes out of his upper anus; it'll sound and smell awful.  He can't help it; it's his nature.

Wandreycer1 wrote, "Their campaign is llke a cornered dying animal - dangerous." Yes and no. (nuance)

Depending on the animal and the size of the room? Sure, I'd not want to meet a wounded tiger in a closet.

But whenever I see the ASPCA drag a dog out of a barn at the end of one of those long sticks (and I know where it's going and what will happen...) the mean and feral creature seems pathetic.  

It isn't as if Obama is facing McCain in a dark alley, a basement or an attic. They won't be alone and besides an audience there may be fifty million people watching.  

The McCain team now realizes any attack in front of a mixed electorate only raises the positives on smaller number of loyalists at the expense of pissing off more people who can go out tomorrow and cast an early ballot for Obama.

Plus, advisers screaming Option One and Option Two at him might be OK if he was going 1:1 with Barack in a boxing ring but it won't help John with his composure or focus. Davis and Schmidt are already too far into McCain's head so he's like a guy with one-third of a brain. His reflexes are already weak and Barack could awaken at 3AM with no confusion because he's been following The Plan for over a year.

McCain can only make a slow climb back and showing that he isn't desperate (or cornered) means no gimmicks, attacks or excitement. Appearing grounded will serve him better with the people he hasn't won to his side. McCain has to accept that people do know Barack. He'll look senile to suggest the most recognizable guy in America is on stage with him and he doesn't know him.

His team and the media have nothing to lose by hoping for a spectacle. They aren't him. A 5% chance that it will work is fine for them but John will walk away trying to shed the consequences when the 95% chance of the failure is carried by him.

Someone should tell him he's facing the guy who will probably be the next POTUS. He doesn't have to grovel but with less than a month to go the best thing for McCain can do is appear rational. At this point, it's the only strategy that can allow him stop his stall and as any pilot knows the alternative is kissing the ground.

Sdemuth: "So, I don't support protection against predatory lending to defend stupidity in the borrowing public, to defend AGAINST stupidity in the lending elite.  The former only ruin themselves, the latter can ruin us all, as recent events come close to demonstrating."

Agree with where you're going.  Although lumping the lenders in the "stupid" column is a category error.  The lenders weren't 'stupid' as they brokered option ARMs and zero-down with no proof of income, nor were the investment geniuses who bundled them into mortgage backed securities - they were greedy, and they should have been, under a sane regulatory environment, criminal.

The distinction is important because of its impact on actions.  For stupid, you get natural consequences.  For greedy and criminal you get a new regulatory regieme, investigation, maybe prosecution.

Watch McCain's body language, and then his spoken response here:

www.youtube.com/watch

To see the kind of ugliness and dishonesty we can expect from little man McCain tonight.

Obama had better be prepared to execute some jiujutsu so that when McCain goes there, it makes McCain look smaller, not stronger.

"At this point, it's the only strategy that can allow him stop his stall."

Michael, twice he crashed his planes - before going to Vietnam - by stalling.  The man is a master of the stall, when he is not playing a stunt.

I recognize that crazy-looking smile on his face. I think Obama will have a plan to handle it -- hope so.

Obama to McCain, "John, your getting a little grumpy there."

Rhubs: thanks for the link.  The man's a creep.  

Sorry folks, I'm going to pull a Jacon and copy-paste from the National Review.  À propos POWPOW's habit of "changing the subject", this is Rich "I dream of Sarah" Lowry, on McCain's chances tonight.  It should be sobering for POWPOW, but I suspect no one will bring this to his attention:

"McCain has to meet a higher standard. Not having a compelling economic message before the financial crisis hit was malpractice; now it’s madness. McCain’s pet causes of bipartisanship and earmark reform don’t qualify as such a message. Bipartisanship is an empty concept; the parties can unite just as easily to pass foolhardy laws as necessary ones. Meanwhile, only John McCain would — as he did in the first debate —steer a discussion about a complex global credit crunch onto earmarked federal spending for bear DNA research.

McCain has suffered from his own manifest lack of interest in economic issues. He was chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee for four years, but you’d never know it. He repeatedly misstates his only real tax proposal for the middle class, an increase in the dependent exemption. Often, he calls it a credit. In the first debate, he called it a dividend. He might as well lurch into Tina Fey territory and call it that “hoozie-what’s-it.” Most voters probably didn’t even know that McCain had a (creative) health-care plan until Obama began lambasting it.  

[...]

So, by all means, McCain should highlight Obama’s troubling friendships, but he has to be careful. If it’s the candidate of “change” versus the candidate of “change the subject,” he’ll lose in an electoral landslide."

article.nationalreview.com

That last line is an excellent one for Obama to use, each time McCain evades a question and goes into attack mode.

I think Noam's right that McCain needs to do something dramatic and mavericky in tonight's debate

McCain is on the ropes and desperate. I don't see him leaving the Rev Wright and Bill Ayers attacks to surrogates alone - especially when his poll numbers are in free-fall. He'll have to make the case over the next month that Obama is too risky, too dark and too liberal to be president. It's his only chance and the debate provides a rather promising forum to do it.

The real question is how Obama counter-punches. We've seen for months that Obama is cautious at hitting back too hard, but I suspect that tonight he will be prepared for the inevitable attack.

But, in the end, it's McCain that looks risky. Picking Palin, suspending his campaign and now fumbling around looking for a magic bullet to stop his slide in the polls? It stinks of cynicism, desperation and unsteady leadership.

icarusr  wrote [Me] "At this point, it's the only strategy that can allow him stop his stall."

[icarusr ] "Michael, twice he crashed his planes - before going to Vietnam - by stalling.  The man is a master of the stall, when he is not playing a stunt."

Yes, and that's why this next month is more than winning or losing an election. It isn't over but both the ending and each candidate's future future is being defined. I want Obama to win, I trust he'll be prepared but I'm glad he didn't chose a Palin for an edge and expect he won't get crazy to seal the deal. Plus, the world is watching and it's in the nation's interest if we show some stability for the next month.

We won't be well served by 30 days of chaos and the GOP will not regret taking a civil course. That doesn't mean they will, but I do see a few cooler heads and the burden is on them.

My compassion for this dying animal is limited to a theory - humans in pain are a shame and I'll leave it at that.  A dying, dangerous animal stillz needs to be destroyed for the good of all, and I look forward to that.  

But I stand by my former respect for him - if I hated every entitled, crazy, erratic, spoiled brat I have ever known, I'd be a lonely woman.  Half the people I know are certifiable half the time.  The guy in that Rolling Stone article sounds like a first class jackass.

- But he did call the Christian Right agents of intolerance

- he did compare himself to the Jedi being chased by the Evil Empire (which I loved, it was so true)

- he did admit to all his faults in a couple of beautiful books (if someone can write well and even better - with amsuing humility, I tend to be forgiving - I know they were collaberations, but they were remarkable).

- people are often very ying and yang things.

Unfortunately, John McCain stopped being yin/yang a long time ago.  He's full darkness rules.  The McCain I respected is a long ago character who has been dead for years.  I know that.

This is now a man who hired the same people who savaged his adopted daughter to run his campaign - and to send of a facist hatemonger to rile up racial hatred because he can't win.

He's evil.

Tonight McCain is going to announce that he will only serve one term as to better be able to devote all of his time to the financial crisis. He will paint this as a true example of putting country first over his own ambition, and getting politics out of the way of fixing the crisis.

That will be the headline out of the campaign, hence I suggest that Obama state right out of the bat that he will only serve one term (before McCain gets the chance) for those very reasons. It will cause McCain's head to explode (which would be pretty dramatic). If McCain says it, many will believe it is bowing to reality (a 76 year old man being re-elected is unthinkable) If Obama says it, it will be an epic earthquake.

I know it won't happen, but what the hell.

Blackie, Obama's response will be a simple one.

"Senator McCain is fond of such gambits: suspend a campaign, rush off to Washington, declare a one term presidency.  Let me just say this, and I hope we can put this issue to bed.  A President has to be able to do more than one thing at any given time - and to do so, on the basis of the oath that he takes, to the best of his ability and for the good of the country, regardless of whether he is running for reelection.  A President does not have the luxury of suspending a crisis to concentrate on another one.  And whether in the first term or the second, whether in one term or two, the President has to dedicate all his waking moments to the protection and betterment of America, and that is what I propose to do."

blackton  wrote, "Tonight McCain is going to announce that he will only serve one term..."

...and Barack asks, "...and when will you announce who your Vice President will be?"

I'm with wandrey.   We don't need to demonize McCain and it's not fair to the man as a whole, who is or has been bigger than his recent campaign.  It's enough to say that he's out of touch, erratic, impulsive, and enamored of questionable ideas.  

On the other hand, demonize Palin all you want.  I flat-out just don't like her.  

Good post, good comments. I'd only add that Obama would be wise to take Bill Clinton's advice, don't preach to the choir, reach out to the independents and moderates. Talk about Biden, about the kind of (white) people he'd surround himself with (i.e., Rubin), praise Hillary Clinton one more time, and thank the Republicans in Congress who voted for the bailout.

I think the fact that McCain would have to choose between going backward (Maverick) or forward (Mr. Nasty) says it all.  Once a politician is judged on these type of choices that he has to make make in a debate, it becomes all form and no substance -- his or her poicies become irrelevant.  I remember afer Gore debated, critics woudl say things  about his demeanor and Gore woud adjust to their criticisms.  Then the critics woudl criticize him for adjusting to their criticisms as if he had no spine.  Meanwhile, the substance of his comments woudl be overlooked.

nusholtz sez: "Meanwhile, the substance of his comments woudl be overlooked."

It seems that this is largely due to the fact that there is nothing of interest to the pundits, who have paid attention to everything else thus far, and they are left to discuss things like "image"; this, in turn, leaves the Joe Sixpack and Jane Spliff in the forest on what all that fancy economic mumbo jumbo really means, and thus the low-information voter is born...

Gspinks

   What I can't relate to is the comments in the media that large groups of people are drawn to Sarah Palin because she reminds them of themselves -- she has a family, she's a hocky mom, she sounds down to earth, whatever.  But I would never think of voting for anyone who reminds me of myself and whenever I ask friends if they would vote for someone for president (or a hearbeat away president) who reminded them of themselves, they say they would not.   Does Sarah Palin draw the egotist vote?

We see what Senator McCain is really made of. He said he was going to run a clean and respectable campaign, but when you get right down to it he is no different from any other Karl Rove and Lee Atwater styled Republican. Since he can’t argue the substance of the current economic crisis, especially with his role in the Savings and Loan fiasco during the 1980s, he chooses to sling mud in order to divert the public’s attention from pocketbook issues (while our pockets are being picked).

A couple of quick thoughts (transcript here ): 1.) I'd say this isn't so much a new speech as