McCain's Political Ploy

The McCain campaign's announcement that it is suspending all of its operations so Sen. McCain can return to Washington to help fashion a compromise on the financial crisis, as well as its request to postpone this Friday's debate, should be seen as one thing, and one thing alone: a fairly desperate political stunt. Regardless of how this election ends up in November, it has become pathetic to see what the McCain campaign has become. Team McCain seems almost incapable of doing anything now besides initiating stunt after stunt, with some media whining sprinkled in for good measure.

Make no mistake, this is a panic move. Team McCain is obviously startled by the string of bad national and state polls over the last week, culminating in some particularly bad ones today. The economy has become far and away the biggest issue to a majority of Americans, and McCain finds himself on the wrong end of the subject. He has President Bush, his party, and himself to blame for that ("the economy is fundamentally strong"). Therefore, his campaign's interest in turning the page, or trying to get McCain on the right side of the national environment, is understandable.

I merely question the methods here. All this is about is getting McCain a day or two of national TV time, with McCain rushing back to Washington in order to play peacemaker and fashion some sort of grand compromise on the force of his personality and maverick bona fides. Forgive me for my skepticism, but hasn't this crisis been going on for well over a week? And didn't Sen. McCain expound on the strength of the economy several times -- in emphatic terms -- over the last week? What happened to that McCain?

The answer is pretty clear. Americans don't trust the Republican Party on this issue given who has been President since 2001, and which of the two parties is more closely identified with Wall Street and its players. Having Palin around certainly does not help McCain's cause either, as she is clearly unprepared to handle a crisis of this magnitude, much less even be able to identify or cogently talk about the specific problems at hand. It seems like the McCain of last week has disappeared as the polls have shown Obama gaining strength of late.

This ploy may give McCain some headlines, but I think it was a panic move, and one he probably did not need to do. While the national polls today have not been great, the tracking polls over the last 2-to-3 days have been trending ever so slowly back to him; and it is the trends that are more important than the numbers himself. Even a handful of state polls from Virginia, New Hampshire, and Michigan today are favorable, though we can argue on their precise accuracy. The point is that this is undoubtedly an over-reaction to bad polling, and I question how much it will help McCain rebound.

One more thing. Team Obama seems to be indicating that the debate will go on as scheduled Friday evening. Good for them. This is a political stunt, and if McCain wants to go to Washington tomorrow, nothing should hold him from being in Jackson, Mississippi on Friday. John McCain is not going to craft a big solution in a day or two, by himself, even if all he cares about about is creating that appearance.

I am not sure how the people at the debate commission will react, but assuming Obama heads to Mississippi, McCain's campaign would whine as only they can, but McCain would very likely head there too. I think he would look like a crybaby otherwise, and if somehow Obama ended up on TV by himself, it would be a disaster for McCain.

All in all, all my politics aside, this is another sad stunt for a man I used to genuinely respect as a national leader. The way he has been conducting his campaign reaffirms everything cynical thing that people believe infests politics. This is not about Obama. This is about McCain and his campaign becoming a pitiful spectacle that is regrettable for Democrats and Republicans alike.