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Robin D. Laws - Tired Of Being Jumped, Local Shark Says

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September 25th, 2008
09:20 am

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Tired Of Being Jumped, Local Shark Says
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All along I’ve been saying that I’ll be surprised if the version of the American id that shows up at the voting booth will go for the smart guy over the fighter pilot. Sure, there’s the enthusiasm gap, and tales of an unprecedented Obama ground game, and a supposed 10-point shift in voter identification. Yeah, yeah, I thought. Maybe. I’ll believe it when I see it.

Now we have McCain's bizarro so-called campaign suspension. Although this race has consisted of one improbable event after the other, I will now be surprised if McCain pulls it out following a no-show at Friday night’s debate. With undecided voters looking for a steady hand, I don’t see how a last-minute punk-out does anything except kill him with everyone but committed Red Tribers.

The idea is even crazier if taken at face value. No presidential opponent in his right mind is going to agree to a mutual campaign suspension if you go broach the proposal in a surprise TV appearance. So if you take McCain at his word you also have to accept that he doesn’t know the first thing about negotiation.

My real guess is that this is, like the Palin pick, ripped from the “it’s crazy, but it might just work” playbook. Still, the whole business puts a mighty temptation on a man to indulge in armchair psychologizing. The gambit seems so transparently self-destructive. Has a part of McCain decided that he’d rather construct a scenario of honorable defeat than inherit the unmanageable legacy of his co-Republican nemesis, George W. Bush?

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From:[info]little_carrot
Date:September 25th, 2008 01:24 pm (UTC)
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It certainly feels like McCain doesn't want to win this election. And, actually, looking at the mess the next president is going to have to deal with, perhaps that's the smart move?
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From:[info]viktor_haag
Date:September 25th, 2008 01:31 pm (UTC)
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He's hoping for a re-run in 2012? Given how tired this race has made him, does he really think he'll be up to it in another four years?

I think it's more reasonable to surmise that the effort of the race has gradually worn him down to the point where he's wobbling a bit (or a lot, I guess, depending on whose reports you take at face value).
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From:[info]little_carrot
Date:September 25th, 2008 01:34 pm (UTC)
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I don't know that he's thinking of 2012 - 2009 looms kinda large, perhaps.
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From:[info]izzylobo
Date:September 25th, 2008 05:17 pm (UTC)
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Honestly, I don't think he's going to live that long - a bunch of estimates I've seen suggest he's got a maybe 50-50 shot at completing a term - at best. He's old, he's got lingering problems from four+ years in a (very bad) POW camp, he's had serious health problems, including an extremely ruthless form of cancer that often recurs.

I'd be hesitant about voting for John McCain even if he did more accurately reflect my political positions - and his nominating Sarah Palin clinched it for me.
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From:[info]sunpony
Date:September 25th, 2008 01:38 pm (UTC)
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It's weird, because he and Obama are fairly close in the polls, for reasons I have yet to truly divine. So, this seems like another attempt to steal momentum from Obama and muddy the electoral waters. He often makes Obama react, not act, and tries to draw attention to himself.

We'll see if it works.
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From:[info]viktor_haag
Date:September 25th, 2008 01:53 pm (UTC)
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Krauthammer opines on how this may have come to pass; it seemed a reasonably cogent analysis, even coming from his admittedly right-wing position. Krauthammer has, for some time, been opining that Obama is really all flash and very little substance, so his point that the Dems were outflashed by the freshness of Palin seems a logical conclusion.
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From:[info]tenzil
Date:September 25th, 2008 02:07 pm (UTC)
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They're fairly close in the polls because Obama is black. In my opinion the GOP's winning strategy can only be, at this point, to run ads reading "BLACKETY BLACK BLACK BLACKENSTEIN BLACKISTAN BLACK BLACK BLACK" from now until November. Sadly it could work.
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From:[info]jeriendhal
Date:September 25th, 2008 02:11 pm (UTC)
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They were close. Obama has pulled several points ahead in the past week as the financial crisis worsened, which plays to the Democrat's mantra of "It's the Economy, Stupid" and weakened the Republican's position of putting the War of Terror ahead of trying to regulate big business.

McCain is trying to get short term points and hoping the electorate will find something else shiny to fixate before the election. Palin energized his base but didn't get the independant votes he wanted and is coming across as a Dan Qualye lightweight. The man is grasping at straws at this point.
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From:[info]richardthinks
Date:September 25th, 2008 01:27 pm (UTC)
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what happens if one party's candidate withdraws (or dies, or somehow disqualifies himself) at this point?
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From:[info]tenzil
Date:September 25th, 2008 02:50 pm (UTC)
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The Constitution is weird on this point (most election traditions are just that -- traditions -- at this point). I think in most states, at this point in time, McCain's name would be the one on the ballot, period, as the presidential nominee. If he were elected yet unable or unwilling to serve I suspect very strongly that the parties would reach consensus that Palin would be sworn in.

However an argument could be made that the 12th amendment says expressly that the person gaining the most votes as President be elected President, and that if one candidate is unable or unwilling to serve, the person with the next largest number of votes FOR PRESIDENT would be elected. Since the same rules apply for the Vice Presidency, in this weird scenario we could see an Obama-Palin (or McCain-Biden) presidency.
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From:[info]flwyd
Date:September 25th, 2008 03:49 pm (UTC)
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The 12th Amendment requires the president get a majority (270) of electoral votes; if majority is not reached the House votes (by state) among the top three candidates.

Remember that the presidential election on the first Tuesday of November actually selects delegates to the electoral college. Should one candidate become unable to serve during the campaign (or have a heart attack in surprise at winning on Wednesday morning), his electors could vote for a different person. In other words, it would be a giant mess of a political circus that would dwarf the 2000 Florida debacle.
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From:[info]muskrat_john
Date:September 25th, 2008 01:39 pm (UTC)
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I posted this last night, while a few others were going "Woot! Another great McCain Hail Mary!"

Of course it all comes down to how the mainstream media portrays this, BUT...

This just seemed another very odd move by McCain to me, inasmuch as the easy deflect is:

Lincoln didn't suspend his campaign during the Civil War.
Hoover didn't suspend his campaign during the Great Depression.
FDR didn't suspend his campaign during WWII.

The basic "A president should be able to walk and chew gum at the same time" response is also a good one.

Also: "Oh, so NOW you want to vote on something" should be an easy cudgel to use, given his absentee record: http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/110/senate/vote-missers/

Lastly: The "So, last week, when you said the fundamentals of our economy are strong, you were incredibly fucking mind-bogglingly wrong?" could also pop up from time to time.

Much like Palin, it seems as if something strikes SOMEONE in his campaign as a good idea, they go for it AND...yeah, not so much.

Not talking politics, here: just basic political strategy...

(My take on Palin - it was designed to get the Hilary supporters. It's not doing that. The McCain campaign was surprised that, instead, it shored up the right-wing base, BUT, you run to the extreme in the primaries, you run to the center in the general election. Palin's losing McCain many independents, according to the polls.)
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From:[info]flwyd
Date:September 25th, 2008 03:30 pm (UTC)
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My take on Palin - it was designed to get the Hilary supporters. It's not doing that. The McCain campaign was surprised that, instead, it shored up the right-wing base, BUT, you run to the extreme in the primaries, you run to the center in the general election. Palin's losing McCain many independents, according to the polls.

I doubt attracting many Clinton supporters was considered anything but a mild bonus by the McCain campaign. Palin has energized the evangelical Republican base that was previously very wary of McCain. While those voters were unlikely to vote for Obama, there was a danger they'd stay home on Election Day. I also suspect Palin's presence will lead to more campaign contributions from evangelicals, though I don't have numbers to back this up.

Gamers should also recognize Palin's other role: Booth Babe. Even though she doesn't have much history in the industry, she attracts attention to an otherwise drab product on grounds other than its merits. In this role she's succeeded fantastically.
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From:[info]muskrat_john
Date:September 25th, 2008 03:39 pm (UTC)
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At the time, mcCain was running a ton of ads trying to court Hilary supporters, so I still elieve that was the primary goal - I don't think he realized what a boon to the evangelical crowd the choice would be.

However, whatever bonus he got from support of the far-right base to me seems more than counterbalanced by the loss of independents and especially the firing up of left-wing voters even more, who are far more petrified of Palin than they would be of McCain himself, and have something crucial to vote *against*.

Of course, I've been wrong before. But that's sort of how I'm seeing this play out...

Again, just a gamer, speculating on strategies. :-)
From:[info]heliograph
Date:September 25th, 2008 04:08 pm (UTC)
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Gamers should also recognize Palin's other role: Booth Babe.

Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
From:[info]heliograph
Date:September 25th, 2008 02:19 pm (UTC)
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This could be how they're thinking:

Most Americans hate politics and politicians. A chunk doesn't vote because they're disenchanted with the system. So what if your candidate said in the middle of the race "Hey, I'm stopping all this political stuff you don't like because I need to go and solve this huge, immediate problem."

1) It certainly isn't politics as usual, and
2) It tries to frame McCain as someone who cares more about solving problems than running a campaign.

So what does Joe Anti-Politics make of that? Obama's spending three days getting ready for the debate, but McCain is "rushing" back to Washington to fix this mess, that if you believe his campaign, wouldn't have happened if they had passed his magic bill awhile back.

To get in the right mindset, you need to forget any history you're aware of before the Vietnam War, and you need to pretend you aren't reading the news every day to get the latest political info: pretend you get all of your political intelligence from commercials and the news bumps in your favorite televised entertainment.



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From:[info]sunpony
Date:September 25th, 2008 02:22 pm (UTC)
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Yeah, that seems to be a part of their thinking. Exploit Americans' distractedness and disenchantment, with an EVENT that grabs attention.

Guh.
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From:[info]flwyd
Date:September 25th, 2008 03:00 pm (UTC)
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My guess is that McCain really did not want to be in a nationally televised debate with a community organizer this week. As Obama said "We've both got big planes. We can both get from Washington to Mississippi really fast."

My recollection of the 1996 election includes Ross Perot leading in national polls, then dropping out, then coming back in at the bottom. That was in the middle of the summer and in a different climate, but "I'll stop campaigning for a while" doesn't have a history of success.
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From:[info]wyldelf
Date:September 25th, 2008 07:23 pm (UTC)
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Jimmy Carter also suspended his campaign, skipping a debate (in the primaries I believe), with the Iran hostage situation in 1980. His campaign didn't go so well.
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From:[info]zonemind
Date:September 26th, 2008 04:32 pm (UTC)
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Hell, even in just this campaign it was Giuliani with the "Florida will save me" gambit during the Republican primary.
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From:[info]urbeatle
Date:September 25th, 2008 04:41 pm (UTC)
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My guess is that it's a way to gracefully remove Palin from the VP debate. Before the campaign was suspended, Palin did an interview with Katie Couric. She couldn't answer simple questions and was visibly flustered. McCain then announces he's suspending the campaign, cancels his appearance on Letterman (as mentioned above,) but *on the same day as his scheduled appearance on Letterman* he does an emergency interview with Katie Couric. And now, McCain is suggesting that the first presidential debate be rescheduled to the date/location of the *vice presidential* debate, and that the VP debate should be postponed.

Conclusion: it's damage control.
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From:[info]leemoyer
Date:September 25th, 2008 05:15 pm (UTC)
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I believe there may be another item at play here - McCain's health.
His expensive make-up artist seems to be hiding something, and I think this Hail Mary might be based on the idea that McCain doesn't want to be seen as a twitchy-eyed cancer-sufferer ala Nixon vs Kennedy.

In any case it's another grotesque insulting gimmick and I hope these people go down in metaphorical, electoral and real flames.
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From:[info]sben
Date:September 25th, 2008 05:45 pm (UTC)
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Almost looks like McCain is the protagonist in an Angels and Operators-style game. "Lurch this way!" "No, over this way!"
From:[info]mythusmage
Date:September 25th, 2008 08:11 pm (UTC)
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It's incidents like this that make me wonder about some of my fellow Americans. (Which statement has nothing to do with Robin's post.)
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From:[info]zonemind
Date:September 26th, 2008 04:30 pm (UTC)
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I was convinced McCain would win it until this event, as well: The Red Tribe is too morally aggrieved to feel any qualm about any victory however Pyrrhic, and the Blue Tribe has adopted "cheated out of victory" as part of its cultural identity.

Now I am truly baffled. The Palin play? Risky but genius, giving Red Tribe a bit more room to pull skeezy ballot-control stuff. The late-to-the-party save Wall Street from itself thing? Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot.

And, yeah. Not a negotiator. I know that diplomatic ability is not something Americans value highly, but they do value not making an ass of yourself in public. This… is asinine.
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