A Political Aside

I was of the opinion yesterday that McCain pulling out of the debates to "save the economy" was a brilliant political move. At a time when his poll numbers are dropping, he basically plays yet another wild card and puts Obama in a no-win situation. If Obama says, "WTF? We're doing the debate!" he comes off as a guy who doesn't want to help the economy and save the common man. If he says, "You're right, Johnny, let's go into session and get 'er done," he's then following McCain's lead and admitting McCain is the voice of wisdom in a time of crisis. There's nothing he can do without the Republicans spinning this to make Obama look bad.

Then again, there's always the mass media to contend with. Already liberal-skewing, according to the conservatives, and not restricted to saying what the Republicans want them to say, McCain now risks comments like Dave's, below:



So wait, McCain should keep campaigning, even though the nation's in crisis? Is that sort of like how I keep coming to work, even when the tiles have fallen off the wall in our shower at home and our house needs a ton of work before we put it on the market in a few months? Or how my wife still takes the girls to ballet class even when she has a cold? Or how both of us do the day-to-day stuff that needs to get done, even when we have other emergencies pop up, like cars breaking down, illness, etc.?

I know I'm oversimplifying things, but dude needs to learn to multitask if he's going to lead the free world. If you need to be in Washington to work on saving the nation, I can get behind that. But maybe you could do the debate that night, from DC? Or maybe the debate now becomes a perfect opportunity to present your economic plan to the nation? After working on a bailout plan behind closed doors with Congress and the Pres, why not discuss it on network television Friday night? Sounds like a great opportunity to talk about real issues while you work to fix them.

Come on, McCain. You can do better than this.