One has to admire the stage management

[jducoeur]

I may still not respect McCain's economic skills, but he and his political team are showing real savvy when the chips are down. This current bit, of suspending his campaign in order to go back to Washington for the crisis, is a real masterstroke -- it makes him look out in front and leaderly on an issue that he's really not very good at.

I think the timing will still probably bite him on the ass (it's just plain too early for the sort of October Surprise he's trying to turn this into), and there are lots of perfectly sensible retorts that the Obama camp can and probably will make (not least, "What the hell are you doing politicizing this mess?"), but as political theater it's really quite clever, and likely to help him at least in the short run...

Comments

[talvinamarich.livejournal.com]

He used a better one.

“It’s my belief that this is exactly the time when the American people need to hear from the person who in approximately 40 days will be responsible for dealing with this mess,” Obama said.

He added, “I think that it is going to be part of the president’s job to deal with more than one thing at once.”

PERFECT.

[antoniseb.livejournal.com]

I suspect that reducing the number of days his $85 million had to cover was also a factor.

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

+1.

Also, I think calling him on the grandstanding that this is is the way to go.

"Hey, McCain -- the experts are already on it. Go back to figuring out how to use a computer, and how many houses you have."

[anastasiav.livejournal.com]

“What, does McCain think the Senate will still be working at 9 p.m. Friday?” Gov. Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania said in an interview, referring to the scheduled start time of the debate. “I think this is all political — I wish McCain had shown the same concern when he didn’t show up in the Senate to vote on the extension of the renewable energy tax credit.”

[johno.livejournal.com]

So if he's suspending his campaign, we shouldn't be seeing Palin out stumping or any of his staff on the weekend interview shows, right?

[its-just-me.livejournal.com]

I fully admit I fell for it. Until I didn't ; )

[goldsquare.livejournal.com]

He's missed more votes than any other Senator, even the one with brain cancer.

They'd be fine without him. :-)

[jducoeur]

Ooh -- nice counter.

Indeed, it relates to one really telling point that I read in (IIRC) Time last week. Palin made this big line at the Republican convention about Obama not having "authored" any major legislation. But of course, authorship isn't what matters in the Senate -- sponsorship is. In about three years, Obama has sponsored three major laws. In 22 years, McCain has only sponsored five...

[baron-steffan.livejournal.com]

See what I wrote on goldsquare's journal.