When blogger Dirty Harry came over to my place so we could drive together to Simi Valley to see the Gipper’s Hellcats of the Navy on the big screen, I was still ambivalent about McCain’s decision to suspend his campaign. Â I shared my post on the topic with him.
In the car, he read me his from the blackberry: Â “This could look like a a serious act of leadership on McCain’s part or the act of a candidate up against the wall hoping to shake things up in his favor.” Â I remarked that despite our difference in styles, we reached similar conclusions. Â (Read the whole thing; it’s short and to the point.)
As we drove to Simi Valley, we started discussing how independent voters would perceive it.  He read some poll on the internet which suggested it would play well.  We began to feel increasingly despondent. When a Democratic friend called, I told him (via blue tooth of course) I thought the move was “foolhardy” and would likely work to Obama’s advantage.
A few moments later, D.H. started reading Ed Morrissey’s post on how John McCain called Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s bluff by agreeing to come to Washington. Â That Democrat had abruptly changed his tune when the Arizona Republican said he would do just that. Â (Again, read the whole thing.)
Maybe this move was as shrewd as it had occasionally appeared to me this afternoon. Â We became cautiously optimistic (note that accent on the adverb.)
Then, D.H.’s  wife, the Hot Little Number, called him to inform him that Obama had capitulated and agreed to come to Washington for a summit organized by President Bush.
McCain’s gambit had paid off. Â That we knew by the Hot Little Number’s description of the talking heads at CNN: Â they looked like kids who just had their bicycles taken away. Â Even Mark Halperin agreed that only McCain could have pulled off such a thing.
We were exuberant. Â From despondency to exuberance in the space of an hour. Â How quick the landscape shifts in this election. Â
I don’t think this will be the last time in 2008 we experience such campaign whiplash.
Someone set up us the bomb.
😉
Thanks for catching that AE. Since fixed.
Thus far, I think you’re leaving out a serious contingency. You’re blogging as if this is something that’s going to be cleared up soon, and then we can all somehow go back to our virtual comfort zones.
Well, what if it’s not? What if this crisis resists a short-term solution? Grant that McCain is the man and Obama the mouse, thus far, but what if everyone’s best laid plans go astray?
“Capitulated”? “Capitulated” on what? Obama is going to Washington somehow means that McCain’s desperate plea to call a time out on his campaign now that he’s losing so badly and cancel Palin’s debate somehow succeeded? Obama presence in DC means he is willing to work on the bill, exactly as he said he would. What does that have to with campaign suspending? Or debate canceling?
And you judge this success of the whole gambit based on face interpretation of CNN anchors? And you gain reinforcement from Halperin’s interpretation, the guy who keeps awarding McCain the win on weeks when he gets the crap beaten out of him?
Man, I *love* this blog.
Capitulated? The essence of McCain’s proposal was that they all come to Washington to hammer out a solution. Obama initially balked at doing that.
And no, torrentprime, I don’t judge the whole gambit by what a few CNN anchors said. Their facial expressions merely reinforced my reaction that McCain scored a political coup.
Remember, torrent, it was McCain not Obama who suggested they go to Washington.
Losing so badly? Hardly. The NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll which leans left had Obama up by one-point. Doesn’t sound like losing badly to me.
The only winners are the Democrat Leadership and Comittee Chairs who continue to get away with not being the ones fingered for this mess
Vince P-
And that’s why McCain has a chance to really win big.
Harry Reid is desperate not to be responsible for the bailout — and McCain would be delighted to take the “responsibility” off his hands. For ‘gotcha’ politicians, responsibility is toxic. For statesmen, it’s mother’s milk.
The Media will hammer McCain over the esoteric details that they think won’t play well with independent voters — but every article, every snide comment, will just remind undecideds that McCain was the adult in the Senate.
Of course, it could play out entirely differently…. but McCain is fighting in a battlefield that he know quite well, and he’s in prime fighting form this month. I wouldn’t put to much faith in Harry Reid to grow a spine in the next twenty-four hours.
Dan, last night, leaning over the side yard fence to retrieve an errant soccer ball and speaking with my neighbor, he shared with me that he was likely going to be an Obama/Biden voter –until yesterday afternoon– and solely because yesterday’s events proved to him and his wife that McCain “finally gets it”, they’re both voting McCain. We have a McCain-Palin hand-made sign from St Paul on our lawn.
He readily claims they’re one of those homeowners who bought too much house in the 90s, have borrowed too much to fill the house they couldn’t afford, the wife has lost & found 4 different professional jobs in the last 15 yrs and they ache in Michigan’s dismal economy –while still wishing they could go to Europe for the summer or walk in the clouds of Machu Picchu, get a more powerful ski boat for the lake, get the kids new $200 Nike soccer shoes and, until last night, he and she regularly complained about WMDs and Iraq in the strongest, angered terms.
I asked him last night about his earlier concern about WMDs/Iraq. His words: “None of that matters now; our financial future is at stake.” I’d peg them as classic Consumers Americanus. And John McCain’s concern about THEIR future and his appearance of leadership brought them to a new point in political allegiance.
When I heard McCain was suspending his campaign to “fix Washington and solve the $700b problem” I too was concerned his gambit was ill-conceived; asking BarryO to suspend campaign ads? How amateurish and naive. By the time the kids were in bed and the side fence conversation was had, I too understood that “McCain gets it” and, more importantly, “knows how to market it to voters”.
The wiley coyote caught another roadrunner… and all that’s left are feathers on the desert floor. For me, too, “McCain gets it†but it’s from the vantage of cold, harsh calculating politics.
Re: Whiplash…
Since no one else has mentioned it: OODA.
Welcome to Maneuver Warfare meets American politics.
With half a million or more veterans of the new kind of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, I suspect this is the shape of politics to come.
Clint, you’re probably exactly correct with that assessment. But, given McCain’s age, can we say “Yoda does OODA”? If we could, I know BruceGP would be happy with the StarWars reference.
“Yoda does OODA.”
I love it. Actually laughed out loud.
Makes me remember the one good thing about the new Star Wars movies — the scene where Yoda is fighting Count Duku and leaping all around attacking Duku from every angle while Duku just stands there.