McCain's use of Ayers will enrage Democrats, delight Republicans, turn off most independents and moderates, and frame him as less interested in our economic plight, more interested in scoring political points. Net-net, it's a dumb thing to do. He'll probably do it.

Who it does help is FOX, Talk Radio, Sarah Palin, Gary Bauer, and a lot of people with no stake in John McCain's future - his reputation, legacy, etc..

Who's watching out for John McCain?

What's there to understand? The man's a temperamental high-stakes crapper (or it is a craps player?) with serious Daddy issues and a sense of entitlement.  His ass is being whipped by a 47-yo nigger first-term senator.  It would not surpise me if, in the course of the debate tonight, he offers to dump the Pitbull and "bring James Baker and get him to fix the economy".

If POWPOW started making sense you should wonder what's going on.  As for his lunatic behaviour - par for the course.

Anyone else seeing eerie parallels to the McGovern campaign?  Disastrous VP pick, more commentary on the ineffectiveness of the campaign than on the issues . . .

Erratic if he changes his strategy now, erratic if he goes back on his promise. That was a great narrative the Obama folks created!

Phatkarp, I don't think it's right to compare Eagleton to Palin. Eagleton was a controversial choice because he concealed a history of severe depression. Palin is a controversial choice because she's dangerously unqualified for the job.

Exactly, Eagleton tried to hide the problem that caused him to step down.  Palin flaunts hers as if she were a star athlete and her absence of qualifications an Olympic gold.

I think it's pretty clear that going with Ayer's is a bad idea.  McCain could have said the comment to distract Obama during his debate prep while McCain gets ready to throw out some ridiculous plan / accusation no ones prepared for or expecting.

Right Rozenson,

And the scary part of it is that she isnt' even TRYING to conceal her lack of qualifications. In fact, she's running on them.

Good point on the Eagleton-Palin non-parallel.  Though it is worth noting that McCain has stuck to his guns on the Palin pick, which is contrary to the criticism that his campaign is schizophrenic/erratic.  Like Bush, he has no qualms with doggedly sticking with his worst decisions.  

If McCain can make Ayers incidental to a larger 'presumptuousness' or 'arrogance' attack on Obama, in line with the measuring of the drapes bit, I think he could still put this thing together in a way that would work for him. In other words, if he makes the narrative Obama's bravado in daring him to 'say it to his face'  a la Drudge, and that's the attack rather than the association, then it can still work cogently with their current message/strategy, if I should be so generous as to impute one to them, (in which case he also gets the bonus of raising Ayers in people's consciousness without having to wear as heavily the cost to his own reputation for being perceived as a petty say-anything slime artist). Otherwise, totally agreed this one has been played about as well as the rest of his campaign.

Prediction:  McCain will not mention Ayers directly unless prompted by Bob Schieffer.  Instead, he will allude vaguely (perhaps ominously) to "associations" and "patterns" and "judgement" or such like.  He will try to draw Obama into saying something damaging without himself using an overtly negative attack.  He certainly won't use the term "terrorist."

Conversely, Obama will not (I hope) use the obvious and tempting (but self-defeating) ploy of tit-for-tat--I'll see  your Ayers and raise you one G. Gordon Liddy or some such.

Prediction 2: If McCain does bring up Ayers or Wright explicitly in the debate, Obama will cut him off at the knees with McCain's transition team head being a former lobbyist for Saddam Hussein, and for McCain having intervened with Federal regulators to allow Keating more time to loot his S&L. And Obama will connect these two associations to all the other lobbyists McCain has hired to run his campaign, and to McCain's anti-regulation stance on finance, and general cluelessness about the economy -- he doesn't know how to help the middle class, but he sure knows how to help out his fatcat pals. Connecting McCain's questionable associations to McCain's failures on the issues would be devastating, while bringing up Liddy would not.

But I think Obama only goes there if McCain is dumb enough to say it to his face.

McCain has said he doesn't care about "two washed up terrorists" but that he thinks Obama has not come clean with the American Public, that's what he claims. That Obama is minimizing his association with Ayers, which makes Obama a liar, essentially. The actual association doesn't matter, in other words, just the hiding of it.

WHich is such a pantload.

Can you imagine him actually trying to make this argument tonight? He is so screwed.