UMD Libertarians

and he wishes to postpone the debate in order to work on the economy. He calls for Obama to do the same. thoughts?

NEW YORK - Republican John McCain says he’s directing his staff to work with Barack Obama’s campaign and the debate commission to delay Friday’s debate because of the economic crisis.In a statement, McCain says he will stop campaigning after addressing former President Bill Clinton’s Global Initiative session on Thursday and return to Washington to focus on the nation’s financial problems.

The Republican presidential hopeful called Obama before he made the statement and told him he was going to suspend his campaign, according to a McCain senior adviser.
According to the source, McCain wants to create a "political free zone" until a deal is reached on legislation for a $700 billion bailout of the financial industry.
McCain also said he wants President Bush to convene a leadership meeting in Washington. Both he and Obama would attend the session.
The dates of the debates, which include three presidential and one vice presidential debate, were announced on November 19.

I must say that this is a brilliant strategy move by McCain. If Obama does not follow McCain’s lead, it’ll seem like Obama doesn’t care about the economy or the nation. Whereas, if he does follow McCain, it’ll make McCain look like a strong leader. And this wipes out McCain’s remarks of not knowing much about the economy.

It depends how dumb people are and how the media spins it. He obviously wants more time rehearsing sound bites for the debates
I really hope this tactic is seen as transparent as it really is.
mm… postponing the debate hardly seems neccesary… but i agree in spirit, and its a great political move… to karl rove

A little bit of win-win for McCain.

But, it’s not going to happen, and is highly doubtful that it’ll gain any sort of steam. Clearly it’s a ploy though. If McCain was actually serious about it, he wouldn’t be working right up until the day of the debate, and he’d have been in Washington on Monday.

it’s not necessary at all

he admits he doesn’t know much about the economy. the debates are much much more important at this stage

imo
Congressman Emanuel (Dem. Illinois) did a good job on MSNBC. He basically said as Democrats, we can handle the campaign and the economic crisis. And that it is not necessary to postpone the debate.

Also, the time line of the legislation of the bailout bill SHOULD be voted and done with by the end of this week. So really, it should be no more than 3 days.

I was referring to what the democrats attack mccain on , "of believing that the fundamentals of the economy is sound."

that was my first thought, while it was a smart move for mccain, the Dems can spin this in their favor so so easily
Moved the debate to D.C. and make it on the economy.

problem solved.
Fuck me, that’s brilliant.

If Obama doesn’t agree, he looks like he doesn’t care. If he does he loses all his positive momentum; meanwhile McCain’s floundering campaign gets some time to take a breather and re-organize.

God, I hope that’s how the public sees it.

I can see the McCain Political Ads now: Obama cares more about politics than our Nation. Obama - not for you, not for America. I’m John McCain and I approve this message.

Dems can just say they are prepared to handle both, maybe even offer to have an open discussion on the economy at the debates.

could be backfire
Obama could spin it and make it out to be that McCain isn’t ready to debate, and then give hardcore democrats nostalgia with FDR bullshit and the Democrats are the saviours
McCain has criticized Obama for not attending the Town Hall Meetings. I wonder how this will be taken into account.
Brilliant fucking move. Rove has to be behind this one…lol
The more I think about it…I really don’t think this is that great of a move.
I understand McCain’s strategy.

I’ll be interested to see what Obama decides. I hope he does NOT suspend his campaign, because it deosn’t make sense for him to stop the momentum at this point.

He can change his schedule around to attend the meetings and still keep his campaign going.

Of course, if Bush schedules the meeting at the exact time of the proposed debate, that would just look bad for the Republicans… make them look scheming… and would potentially hurt McCain’s credibility even more… it would look like McCain really was in bed with Bush.

So, I think Obama should say "Thanks, but no thanks! If your proposed meeting happens, I’ll be happy to attend it. But, I’m going to keep my campaign going as well. I have enough clarity of thought that I can do both!"
Realistically:

Obama should counter with a simple "sorry, but there’s an election occuring in a few weeks. I’m capable of campaigning and keeping up with the economy, and I’ll see you Friday." A bit more eloquent, of course.

Should we expect that same attitude if President McCain were to face a serious national threat? "Hold on Vladimir, time out. I need to work on my response — no more attacks until next week, please." I dunno how Obama will get that across but that’s what he’s gotta do.

He cannot stop. McCain campaign is down and a boot needs to put on it’s neck.

totally.

especially about the bush/timing part, which sounds very much like a bush move.
I think Obama might take the offer at the chance to appeal to the greater good.
Obama needs to come back with something like…The President needs to be able to handle multiple situations at any given time. McCain is clearly showing that he is not up to the job. We will continue with our campaign and continue to work on the economy. See you at the debates.
Oh shit

According to CNN, Obama’s campaign called the McCain camp at 8:30 am this morning to discuss both of them taking a break…and McCain’s camp called back this afternoon (2:30, which was right before his announcement) to agree.

.

I agree with this 100%. This is when you need a Carl Rove.

I don’t see where they are both talking about taking a break. It seems like it’s pretty much from the McCain camp.

this doesnt exactly sound like them saying "lets take a break from campaigning". lol treed.
Obama should come out with an ad complete with timelines:

McCain last week-The economy is fundamentally strong!
McCain this week-Let’s skip the debates, the economy needs attention!

Which one is it?

Isn’t McCain the guy that said "I don’t know as much about the economy as I should?" And now he’s going to suspend his campaign, out of the goodness of his heart mind you, so that he can go to Washington and handle the economic crisis?

What can he, someone who admits to not knowing much about the ecoonomy, do that the other 98 senators can’t? What does he add that Bernanke and Paulson don’t?

As Tank loves to point out, senators don’t write legislation, they just vote on it. It’s such an empty and transparent gesture, but I’m sure it will be lapped up by the usual suspects.
this could be the turning point in the campaign, hopefully Obama won’t take the bait
Great move by the McCain campain. I do not believe for one second its not a political decision.

No problem, bro.

.

It’s a brilliant political move from the McCain camp nonetheless.

you know Tony, for 5 and a half years, McCain didn’t have the opportunity to fix the American economy. He was captured by the Viet Cong and fixing the American economy was what kept him sane though the torture.

I sure as fuck hope it won’t. I’m glad Obama’s camp had the balls to counter this rediculous proposition.
McCain has said he’s not going to run campaign ads for a few days

What the fuck does that do?

This is EXACTLY what Obama just said

It’s brilliant. Overall, people are blaming Republicans for the issues. McCain just said the fundamentals of the economy are strong. He also said he doesn’t understand economics as well as he should. Let America forget about him for a minute. They really need to move the economy debate to this friday instead of the foreign policy debate.
This was retarded from the start.

McCain said he’ll suspend his campaign… i.e. he doesn’t have to run it. When he doesn’t run it anyways. And that he’ll take down ads, when his ads are ineffective and need to be redone anyways.

It was a ploy. They knew Obama wouldn’t jump, just trying to get themselves some air time and appear as if they care.

Ultimately I think it’ll backfire. Presidents can’t take a break from one thing to focus on another. Maybe we should take a break from Iraq and focus on Afghanistan? No?
OBAMA CALLED MCCAINS BLUFF…LOL

he basically said "i can walk and chew gum at the same time…the debate is on bitches.."

This could be spun (and it looks like it may be) that mccain looks like he can only deal with one thing at a time…well the president has to deal with multiple issues all the time.

What do we know about his campaign finances? Is he running short on money?
this is all political grandstanding.

cant believe you guys are falling for it "err i think its brilliant strategy err"

Barack, I can only concentrate on one thing at a time..lets suspend-

Fuck that bitch, I can walk and chew bubblegum at the same time…its on.
Maybe McCain can suspend being president when things get too tough.

Holy crap, people who vote on party lines are defending their party’s shitty actions.

He has been asking obama to debate for months. Hes not afraid of the debate, but I agree its just a stupid ploy to make obama look bad.

he put forth a debate schedule and format he knew obama wouldn’t take so he could turn and call obama a coward
and at the moment he was hurting both financially and in terms of press coverage. the schedule with a bunch of town hall meetings was clearly a way of getting himself lots of free facetime with the press from obama’s coattails back then…

Which is your theory, i think obama was not ready, and is still not ready.

If he’s not ready why would he decline to postpone it?

He planning on being ready by Friday?
not only that, but risk looking bad for not wanting to stop campaigning.

if he werent ready, this mcCain thing wouldve been a godsend for him to postpone it.
Cheap political stunt, imo. And I don’t think people are buying it. There are 99 other Senators and 400+ house members in Congress. This just reeks of grandstanding and imo bringing presidential election politics into this mess will only hurt, not help, getting to a good solution moving forward.

But you know what would be really awesome? If they switch the presidential debate time with the vice-president debate time. Watching Palin try to debate without weeks more of prep time would be lulz.

I should be on his campaign team
[quote=Rommel;105358752]
McCain is a coward
quote]

most of what you say is retarded but I think you have demonstrated a profound new level of stupidity with this one! Rock on retard!

pot, meet kettle

Wrong-O. Obama had a great come-back for McCain, saying a PRESIDENT should be able to do more than one thing at a time.

*bam!*

Way to go Obama! Spin that shit right back at ‘im!

I was wondering what the hell McCain was thinking saying to stop debating and advertising. I think he wanted to be seen as the one extending a friendly hand to "get the job done" or whatever. I hope it totally backfired.

Ok. You win. I’ll rephrase it.

McCain is a pussy.

Hardly. The only way this goes good for him is if Obama falls for it, and plays along with the bi-partisan bit.

Also, this is hilarious in view of Palin’s interview with Katie Couric. You know, the one in which she said that we need action right now. The one in which she said McCain wasn’t going to just sit around and try to determine what way the political wind was blowing.

The one where Palin tried to insist McCain has been a proponent of stronger regulation, but when pressed could not site a single example.

Or, Obama looks like he knows whats going on, rather than needing to take a break to get it right.
This has already backfired, and will seal the election of Obama if McCain doesn’t debate on friday. All McCain can do is vote, and truly, he can keep campaigning and then go vote if need be. Curious that’s exactly what Obama said.

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