David Corn

DC,

Right on the money again!

Why isn't John McCain in deep discussions with the most qualified executive in the GOP? Why isn't Palin in the meeting? Why can't she even take a few questions in a presser?

That last suggestion is wicked. She can't possibly be ready to deabate yet. She has not yet had time to memorize all the stock talking points they've written for her.

Joe would eat her liunch for her and then consume Johnny Boy's lunch to boot.

If America is not as racist as I think it is, Obama will be POTUS in short order.

Joe Barton (R-Texas) just came on CNN and said there are not 50 votes in the House for the Paulson plan. In otherwords,the financial markets are flying on one engine for a while, with no guarantee of swift government intervention.

Isn't McCain's desperate move an admission that there is currently no president? I mean, why does everything hang on a senator from Arizona? Shouldn't it be Bush who is handling this? We've long known that the emperor has no clothes, but McCain is making a "Republicans Gone Wild" video with this grandstanding.

Very suspicious that as soon as Obama is up 9% in the polls, all of a sudden the mess the Republicans made is so important that McCain can't go on competing with his rival.

--
Posted By Juan Cole to Informed Comment at 9/24/2008 03:33:00 PM

The Obama campaign's reaction to John McCain's call to delay Friday's debate:

"The debate is on," a senior Obama campaign official told ABC News.

Now let's see if John McCain can walk and chew gum at the same time.

(kos)

*****

This is what leadership looks like. We are in arguably the most important closing weeks of the campaign. Johnny boy will just have to make time. Heck the debate is in the evening so it is AFTER work!

Rahm Emanuel appeared on MSNBC to say that the candidates ought to be able to multitask. That is my view as well. Paulson and Bernanke have testified before the relevant committees and many experts and staff specialists are working non-stop on alternative legislation. The presence of the candidates can be useful to focus attention, but they are not critical to the sausage-making process. They should lead by articulation direction and vision. What better place than a nationally televised debate to do that?

(kos)

McCain Suspends Campaign to Focus on Economic Crisis

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDWSFKnBIHg

*****

Now the flip-flop - change the message - outright lie:

Now McCain is saying (via Cameron/Fox) that he will only be suspending his ads. That's a whole different thing. He is also saying that if the crisis is concluded (?) before Friday, he would attend the debate. Canceling the debate would be a very expensive move. I don't know how they could keep the debate provisionally scheduled with just two days to go.

(kos)

Next thing you know they will be calling off the election. You think that's the plan? State of emergency, can't hold elections till it's over....???

Obama: The Debate is On

Preparing for the debate in Florida, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama held a previously unscheduled news conference, arguing the debate should go on.

"I believe that we should continue to have the debate," Obama said. "It's my belief that this is exact time when the American people need to hear form the person who in approximately 40 days will be responsibly for dealing with this mess and I think that it is going to be part of the president’s job to deal with more than one thing at once."

Obama said that unlike McCain, he will not suspend ads, or campaign events scheduled between now and Friday's debate.

"I think it's very important that the American people see the people who potentially could be in charge of this problem within the next couple of months and so my attitude is that we need to be focused on solving the problems, as I have been," Obama said. "It's also important that we communicate where we need to go in getting us out of the situation."

Obama said he will stay in Florida for the time being and will not return to Washington unless asked by Congressional leadership.

"I've told the leadership in Congress is that if I can be helpful then I am prepared to be anywhere at anytime," he said.

http://tinyurl.com/3kg3bk

******

McCain - freaking out under pressure. Not very presidential, not good judgment, very poor temperment, can't multi-task.

Maybe this will be the game changer and he will rally his base and reverse the trendlines in the polls?

yes state of emergency cancel the entire election.
that has been my prediction from day one.

http://www.coolnesscomplex.com/schleprock.jpg

Obama's Prescient Judgment Again

Obama warned of the impending mortgage crisis a year ago. Here's the relevant letter on March 22, 2007. On this and on Iraq nd on Pakistan, his actual judgment simply put him on a level far beyond Clinton and McCain, let alone the current president. Judge for yourself:

Dear Chairman Bernanke and Secretary Paulson,

There is grave concern in low-income communities about a potential coming wave of foreclosures. Because regulators are partly responsible for creating the environment that is leading to rising rates of home foreclosure in the subprime mortgage market, I urge you immediately to convene a homeownership preservation summit with leading mortgage lenders, investors, loan servicing organizations, consumer advocates, federal regulators and housing-related agencies to assess options for private sector responses to the challenge.

We cannot sit on the sidelines while increasing numbers of American families face the risk of losing their homes.

http://tinyurl.com/38v2d6

David Letterman, according to Drudge:

"You don't suspend your campaign. This doesn't smell right. This isn't the way a tested hero behaves." And he joked: "I think someone's putting something in his metamucil."

"He can't run the campaign because the economy is cratering? Fine, put in your second string quarterback, Sara Palin. Where is she?"

"What are you going to do if you're elected and things get tough? Suspend being president? We've got a guy like that now!"

*****

McCain is joke, his whole campaign has been a joke. The only people that haven't caught on are the rabid Reich-wing knuckle-draggers.

Oh yeah and the dozens of die-hard Palin supporters~!

lolololo

McCain's Economic Plan: Blurt Out Random Crap

There are several reasons why Senator Obama is enjoying a double-digit lead in the "honest and trustworthy" category (47 percent to 36 percent according the new ABC News/Washington Post poll). First, Senator Obama doesn't, you know, lie to the American people every damn day. Second, Senator Obama didn't vote with the dishonest, corrupt Bush administration 90 percent of the time.

But one of the main reasons why the nation appears to be lining up against Senator McCain's insanely obvious lack of integrity could be because his very serious and mavericky campaign strategy can be described in four simple words:

Blurt Out Random Crap.

"Crap," in this context, is defined as everything from lies to weasel-words to inexplicably weird nonsense. And it seems like Senator McCain does this a lot. So much so that we can only conclude that it's intentional.

http://tinyurl.com/3w92z9

An Alternative to Delaying the Debate

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid issued a statement on Sen. John McCain's effort to postpone the first presidential debate, stressing it "would not be helpful at this time to have them come back during these negotiations and risk injecting presidential politics into this process."

He added: "If there were ever a time for both candidates to hold a debate before the American people about this serious challenge, it is now."

Joe Klein: "Perhaps, if he's really interested in this financial stuff, McCain should propose that he and Obama change the topic from foreign policy to economics this Friday night -- they could even stage the debate in Washington, so they wouldn't have to stray far from the bailout negotiations. I'm sure their fellow members of the Senate won't mind if McCain and Obama spend a few hours enlightening the public on this crucial subject."

http://tinyurl.com/4xqged

What Is Politics?

This is the time when politics matters the most, not the least.

When the philosophical differences that each party organizes around are put to the test of reality.

When conflict builds consensus, not by ignoring conflict.

When the public craves answers and debate from their politicians.

When the stakes of the presidential election could not be more acute.

Comparative advantage: the best thing the presidential candidates can do now is to practice their politics honestly, not to abandon politics altogether -- itself, of course, a political move.

Suspending your campaign basically says: all that over the past sixteen months? It wasn't important. Ignore what I said or did.

Too late.

The tough thing here for McCain is that nobody in Washington asked him to come back; nobody seems to need him to come back; and that Democrats simply do not trust John McCain's motives.

http://tinyurl.com/3g8lur

******

People are getting to the point where they "trust" McCain about as much as Busheney.

Palin gets question, looks to McCain, demurs

This is what happens when campaigns let reporters into photo ops. They get all uppity and ask questions.

From the pool report account of what happened after McCain and Palin's meeting with Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvilli and Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko:

McCain then looked around the room and gestured as if to welcome questions. The AP reporter shouted a question at Gov. Palin (“Governor, what have you learned from your meetings?”) but McCain aide Brooke Buchanan intervened and shepherded everybody out of the room.

Palin looked surprised, leaned over to McCain and asked him a question, to which your pooler thinks he shook his head as if to say “No.”

http://tinyurl.com/4pqo9h

*****

ROTFLMAO!

Sure, this press thing will make people feel confident about Palin and McCain? Such an obvious ploy? Maybe it will work, eh?

Bad News For The Bailout

[...]

In fact, some of the most basic details, including the $700 billion figure Treasury would use to buy up bad debt, are fuzzy.

"It's not based on any particular data point," a Treasury spokeswoman told Forbes.com Tuesday. "We just wanted to choose a really large number."

http://tinyurl.com/3fc92x

*****

This is how our treasury department is run? They did choose a really large number, I guess a full trillion would have been too large?

Oops! McCain team leaks talking points on suspending campaign

The regional spokesman for John McCain in Colorado accidentally sent the campaign’s internal talking points on the candidate’s plans to suspend his campaign to its entire Colorado media list, instead of a list of key volunteers, Wednesday afternoon, PolitickerCO’s Jeremy Pelzer reports.

The memo, titled “TALKING POINTS: SUSPENDING THE CAMPAIGN,” includes a list of points the campaign wants emphasized, and includes this warning from Kise: “Please do not proactively reach out to the media on this.”

http://tinyurl.com/429etf

*****

Now, I can kinda see why the Bushbots support this guy, they love the Keystone Cops!

fiverthirtyeight.com

The only thing we can say for certain is that things are going well for Obama in Colorado, where all polls have him ticking upward fairly sharply, and all have him polling ahead of his national numbers. But this is a day where it's probably best to take a mulligan and wait a day or so for things to settle down.

*****

With all that is hitting the fan and John running for cover from the debates - the poll numbers are likely meaningless. Nate and Sean are pretty good with this stuff and they are usually right.

Braking - All Republicans to Suspend Campaigns

In a joint statement, Congressional leaders from both the House and the Senate and almost all rank and file members stood together on the steps of Congress and announced that all Republicans in contested races would immediately suspend their campaigns to focus on fixing the American economy.

"We're facing the ultimate test of our national will as we attempt to resolve policies that began with Carter's Community Reinvestment Act and were exacerbated by Clinton's mistakes", said an embattled President Bush before his press conference.

If Democrats don’t immediately join us in stopping "politics as usual" in this time of great national crisis, anything bad that happens will be their fault." said Senate Minority leader John Boehner, who added that is was most important now to join John McCain in putting America First.

http://tinyurl.com/3k4x68

Flashback: McCain Debated While Gramm Negotiated Deregulation

John McCain's push to postpone Friday's debate is being met with wide skepticism from pundits, the American public, and even fellow Republicans.

Here's another good reason to question whether this was a principled move: once upon a time, in October 1999, Senate Republicans led by Phil Gramm were deep in negotiations on key legislation to deregulate the banking industry. The New York Times reported at the time:

"The deal was announced about 2 A.M. after a compromise was reached over the measure's effect on lending rules for the disadvantaged, the source of months of partisan bickering between the White House and Senator Phil Gramm, the Texas Republican who heads the banking committee. ... For more than 20 years, Congress has tried unsuccessfully to rewrite the nation's financial services laws and repeal Glass-Steagall... That all changed in recent years as the lines between the industries began to blur and it became more broadly acknowledged that a deregulation of financial services could be beneficial to insurers, bankers and securities firms alike. Once the three industries rallied around the legislation, they became a formidable political force, raising millions of dollars for lawmakers and pressing both Republican leaders in Congress and the White House for new legislation."

Those negotiations took place on October 22. And where was McCain at the time? At a presidential debate in New Hampshire, praising deregulation.

Take a look for yourself:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpVir1EAcRc

McCain's quote: "There's a number of reasons why we are experiencing this almost unprecedented prosperity. Among them are a lack of regulation, free trade, and most importantly, we are going through a revolution the likes of which the world has seldom seen."

*****

Does McCain forget the things he has said all through his career? It is like he is a pod-person nowadays

Bush Uses Iraq-Based Troops As Domestic Political Pawns, And Almost Nobody Notices

Yesterday, ThinkProgress reported on an extraordinary revelation in the ongoing negotiations between the Bush White House and Nouri al-Maliki's Iraqi government over a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops. Previously, al-Maliki had come out as a proponent of a withdrawal timetable that set "the end of 2010" as "the appropriate time for the withdrawal." This dovetailed neatly with similar calls from the Democratic candidate, Barack Obama. As ThinkProgress points out, maybe a little too neatly:

http://tinyurl.com/4asyeg

I've received an email urging me to write to Jim Lehr of PBS, who will moderate the first debate, about asking Senator McCain in Friday night's debate (if he shows up) to disclose his full health record. To be quite honest, I don't usually respond to these emails, but I think this is a fair question, given McCain is asking us to trust his judgment in having Sarah Palin run with him and possibly become president, if they are elected and he dies in office, God forbid.

When he balks at the Bush White House wanting a $700 billion dollar bail-out of Wall Street with no oversight, it is not fair to know what his "capital" is, so to speak. Do we trust his oversight on this question? What we will have to endure if he is incapacitated and she is Acting President or is a President in her own right seeking on-the-job training, if Sarah Plain is put in that position? His health records are an important factor in this election.

Braking - All Republicans to Suspend Campaigns - Shades of Jim Jones, they are going to down the koolaid at last.

"We're facing the ultimate test of our national will as we attempt to resolve policies that began with Carter's Community Reinvestment Act and were exacerbated by Clinton's mistakes", said an embattled President Bush before his press conference.

Are we supposed to connect Obama's half brothers in the ghetto with the fall of Wall Street? How blatantly racist can this administration be?

And at the same time, McCain is trying to associate Obama with every scary black man they can name, including Kwame Kilpatrick who once introduced Obama at a Detroit Economics Club meeting. They forgot Chris Rock.

And jeez capt., what did you say the woke Tim from his stupor?

McCain Camp Wants To Postpone VP Debate

John McCain's campaign now wants to suspend the VP debate?

CNN's Dana Bash reports that McCain officials are "trying to negotiate with the Obama campaign and the presidential debate commission" to change next Thursday's planned vice presidential debate into a McCain-Obama affair. The VP debate would be postponed to another date.

"That is what they are proposing," Bash reported. "[McCain officials] understand very well that both the Obama campaign and the debate commission have no intention of delaying Friday's debate, but...if there is no bailout deal by Friday, McCain has no plan to go to debate."

Watch it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMQxDprCVbE

http://tinyurl.com/5ydgcq

*****

Is McCain thinking he can wiggle out of the Friday debate - replace the VP debate with him and Obama?

I think the McCain camp is setting up in crazytown!

*brushes shoulder*

I don't read troll posts.

Rick Davis is taking time off from work to run the campaign for McCain. Not a bad gig. especially while Fannie Mac pays you $15,000 a month.

Is McCain putting country first by suspending his campaign or is he going to Washington to intercede on behalf of a rich donor? Oh yea, he promised not to that again. But this time his bus is bulging with four lobbyists for every seat.

Obama is so crass. You too David. How can McCain possibly get his bus from Washington to Mississippi on time for the debates? It doesn't even know where it's going.

denmac suspends campaign talking points to help bail out McCain.

Sorry too, late.

26 minutes until McCain appears on Letterman. Oops, he canceled that too, even thought he was in New York when he told Dave he was in Washington.

Will the $700B chip in for a GPS for the straight talk bus?

What VP debate? There was never going to be one. There will never be one. It was part of the Hail Mary Pass. Put Barbie on the ticket, but control what she says and where she says it. Interviews by Charlie Gibson, Sean Hannity and Katie Couric.

But no real questions and no debates. Katie does ask some questions, but Palin never answers.

Geof01,

"Will the $700B chip in for a GPS for the straight talk bus?"

Too funny!

Thanks!

Is McCain too Distraught and Overwhelmed by economic crisis to debate and explain to the American people what clear ideas and solutions he has to handle this crisis. May be McCain is unable to handle the stress and is having a senior moment, because when you are President of the United States, there is no rest for the weary, and you are always on Call!

Or, is McCain really being dirty and underhanded, trying to pull the wool out from under Barack’s feet, when he reached out to him early Wedensday morning in a bi-partisan moment, so together they could show solidarity and release a Joint Statement, however, McCain did not like that idea and decidied to bring politics into an already unsteady situation in an attempt to aid his political career, pretending that it was he who reached out to Barack and not the otherway around! However, that was not good enough, he must one-up him and cancel the campaign all together, the crisis is so great, a sudden change of heart that makes McCain look phony and untrustworthy. That is not putting Country first, but we already know that by his Pallin pick!

And, of course, the debates should not be cancelled. A President has to be able to multi-task, big time! McCain’s cancelling looks more like a senior moment or that he is too overwhelmed and distraught to be albe to explain to the country just what he would do to address this problem. Maybe McCain will not be able to answer that 3:00 a.m. phone call as a President is always on call.

McCain the Wizard of Oz now pretends he has a heart, brain and courage! If so, its not working very well. His wall of lies and deceipt are closing in on him and soon there will be no place to hide, not even in the Senate. McCain you can run, you can lie, but you cannot hide and Humpty Dumpty couldnot be put together again!

Obama:

For eight years we’ve been told that the way to a stronger economy was to give huge tax breaks to corporations and the wealthiest. Cut oversight on Wall Street. And somehow all Americans would benefit. Well now we know the truth. Instead of prosperity trickling down, pain has trickled up. We need to change direction. Now. I’m Barack Obama. Here’s what I’ll do as president: End the Wall Street free for all with commonsense safeguards that put homeowners and struggling families first — not corporate greed and CEO bonuses. Jumpstart our economy with a middle class tax cut, paid for by closing special interest group loopholes. Get serious about energy independence. A ten-year mission to create millions of good paying jobs by investing in made-in-America energy and infrastructure. You can read my whole plan to rebuild our economy on our website, Barackobama.com. It’s time to get our economy back on track and put the middle class first again. And that’s why I approve this message.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BB48vTWsnII

mcsame is just chickening out of the debate! now he can say, "obama doesn't want to fix the economy".

Watching mccain use to be funny, now it's just sad. I wonder what else he is going to try.