The Atlantic - Latest Comments in McCain telegraphing his punches

Re: McCain telegraphing his punches

Matt McIrvin — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 07:42:50 -0000

The main reason they haven't brought up Wright is that McCain explicitly said Wright was out of bounds earlier in the campaign. That makes it harder to say that the attack is legitimate; they'll probably do it anyway, but it'll have to be accompanied with sadder-but-wiser rhetoric about how Obama made them do it, etc.

The funny thing to me is that McCain's campaign logically could have responded to the "say it to my face" call-outs by pointing out that Obama could be accused of the same thing with regard to Charles Keating and the "Keating Economics" website. I'm thinking the reason they didn't is that they're genuinely terrified of Keating coming up, whereas Obama isn't scared of Ayers (or Rezko, or Wright) coming up at all--he's got his counterpunch all ready.

Re: McCain telegraphing his punches

toby — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 06:21:23 -0000

Nice of McCain to telegraph his punch!

I am sure Obama will have a zinger to fire right back at him.

Re: McCain telegraphing his punches

anna perez — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 03:14:51 -0000

Oh my how i love the Ta-nehisi community. So smart, so thoughtful. As long as the poll numbers trend Obana the McCain campaign will throw everything they have at Obama. And the Obama campaign knows this and they are prepared. Since I worked for 43 and know many of the people working on the McCain campaign know this to be true, they will work every angle, every thing they can dig up until election day and so must we.

Re: McCain telegraphing his punches

Chet — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 00:57:01 -0000

Now, this might be because of blowback - but what would be the difference between the current Ayers stuff, and then the Reverend Wright stuff?

The fact that the stuff Wright said isn't actually all that absurd or unreasonable compared to the snake-handling shenanigans Palin's done at her church?

By all means, let's make the churches a part of the debate. Nothing Wright ever said is substantially worse than (for instance) the anti-gay bigotry I've heard from the pews at my parent's church. And they're just regular folks at a small-town church.

Re: McCain telegraphing his punches

Martin — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 23:43:49 -0000

Obviously McCain wants to trick Obama into attacking first, then NOT following through with an Ayers zinger (or following through: either outcome would be good), thus turning Obama into a frightening and erratic soul whom we would all be unwise to trust--and robbing Obama of any dirt that he might have lying in store for the "October Surprise" from McCain & Co., come Halloween.

Re: McCain telegraphing his punches

Shawn — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 21:02:35 -0000

@bdbd: Actually, Obama's version of that would something like "You're honorable enough, Senator."

Re: McCain telegraphing his punches

bdbd — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 17:10:49 -0000

re: Shawn: Obama to McCain: "Is that all you got?" (lean in and say it at the clinch at the opening bell of the debate!)

Re: McCain telegraphing his punches

Deborah — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 16:42:08 -0000

Excellent point from TNR that announcing your intentions on how you'll fight your enemies is exactly what McCain told Obama, in the last 2 debates, you should never do. More tactics/strategy.

Re: McCain telegraphing his punches

Shawn — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 15:59:35 -0000

O.K., I'm really starting to think Obama really is the Ali of politics. I mean, he's gotten inside their heads with a few deft words here and there and then has just been sitting back and watching McCain and Palin sputter while he goes out stumps about the economy. Granted, there's still three weeks to go, but in terms of strategy, he's the one calling the shots, and that is half the battler.

Re: McCain telegraphing his punches

bdbd — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 15:09:00 -0000

I think Obama should raise the issue himself, maybe even toss in a "John couldn't ask me to my face last debate so let me talk briefly about Bill Ayers." Obama then says "this will be our last debate, so I'd like to ask John to make any other personal accusation he intends to make in the weeks before the election now and to my face rather than later and through his surrogates."

Re: McCain telegraphing his punches

Richardson — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 15:02:10 -0000

Violence has always been the far Right's substitute for intelligence. Just because something doesn't work 50 times doesn't mean they won't keep trying it.

Re: McCain telegraphing his punches

Deborah — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 14:26:15 -0000

Following on Persia's point, I think they're just trying to dare Obama's camp to call McCain "erratic" some more.

JC, I see 3 reasons for lack of Wright:

a) In a rare moment of discipline, foresight, and strategy, they won't touch Wright until they go nuclear a week before the election.

b) Palin's religious stuff is worse, and they won't make it an issue.

c) Ayers opposed McCain's war, and Wright served in it honorably. Maybe it's as simple as McCain being unwilling to screw another vet.

(c) seems too little to explain it, but (a) seems unsupported by their campaigning to date, and I don't think (b) would hold off the 527s, which seems to be happening.

Re: McCain telegraphing his punches

John Henry — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 14:24:00 -0000

McCain does not let intellectual consistency get in the way of his arguments.

Re: McCain telegraphing his punches

JC — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 14:00:07 -0000

Actually, they HAVE refrained from bringing up Reverend Wright. And if that decision came from McCain, I'm happy about it.

McCain seems stuck between a rock and a hard place. The trends are all against him, so the natural Republican inclination is to go NEGATIVE NEGATIVE NEGATIVE, but something - is it possible honor? you never know - has made him stop JUST short of going all the way in, running Wright 24/7.

Now, this might be because of blowback - but what would be the difference between the current Ayers stuff, and then the Reverend Wright stuff?

Re: McCain telegraphing his punches

Alexg — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 13:58:56 -0000

As Sullivan points out--Ahnenberg gave Obama the best Ayers defense by endorsing McCain.

Re: McCain telegraphing his punches

Jay C — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 13:56:45 -0000

Agree with Zach, above: the McCain campaign bringing up the issue (bogus though it may be) of Sen. Obama's "associations" from a position of strength is one thing: doing it from a position of weakness - down by near-landslide margins in most polls - is folly. And especially when Obama has just released a major homeowner-mortgage-rescue proposal to shift the debate back to economic issues. Issues which the McCain campaign would probably prefer NOT to become the focus of discussion. Again.

In short, this was a mainstream foundation funded by a mainstream, Republican business leader and led by an overwhelmingly mainstream, civic-minded group of individuals.

And most interestingly, with which "unrepentant terrorist" William Ayers was associated for years without, seemingly, any particular outburst of outrage from any of the concerned parties. Until, of course, Barack Obama began his run for President. Must be just a coincidence...

Re: McCain telegraphing his punches

lebecka — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 13:48:00 -0000

Angelica-- one types in "foo" to prove that one is a human, not a zombie computer ready to flood TNC with hundreds of thousands of unwanted mails that will shut down the server.

McCain was played, and played really really well, just when he thought his evil plans were coming to fruition. he is the Punkest of Punks, and he is going down, because the media story now is "McCain = played, incompetent, doddering old guy", in conjunction with "Obama = calm, cool, collected, smart guy". you can't come back from that.

Re: McCain telegraphing his punches

brucds — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 13:19:00 -0000

Bill Ayers and Obama both sat on a Board funded by Walter Annenberg. Ronald Reagan was one of Annenberg's closest friends. Ronald Reagan was at one time President of the Screen Actors Guild. Ed Asner also was a President of the Screen Actor's Guild. Asner appeared in Oliver Stone's conspiracy flik, JFK, with...Kevin Bacon. I rest my case.

Re: McCain telegraphing his punches

Hnery — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 13:07:03 -0000

McCain is screwed, he allowed himself painted into a corner. Whatever he does he offends someboody... the Ayres thingy works well with his base, but the way he has handled it,alienates the the people he wan'ts to bring to his side.

So if he brings it up in the debate he will come as mean spirited to the voters he wants to convince. If he doesn't... his base will think he has no backbone and might decide to stay home on election day, plus all the taunting that his going to get from democrats for chickening out.

The McCain campaing thought these was a real winning issue, they got a nasty lesson in political jiu-jitsu.

Re: McCain telegraphing his punches

Zach — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 13:03:44 -0000

McCain doesn't seem to realize that Obama's response on Ayers when interviewed by Gibson was the same response he would've had during the debate: if Ayers is so important, why didn't McCain bring him up in the first debate, or Palin in the VP debate? Regardless of how it came up, Obama was itching to call McCain out on it and have McCain either put up or shut up when it comes to backing the Ayers attacks. Frankly, I think Obama missed out by not having Ayers come up in the last debate, and it benefits him for it to drop now. Take it out of the shadows and let people see there's nothing there.

McCain wanted to go negative but failed to do so in a position of strength. He gambled that he'd have an opportunity to do that sometime this month, but Obama's been consistently rolling him and gaining strength everywhere. McCain might've made something of himself had he immediately dispatched Palin to attack Obama on Ayers/Wright/etc right after the RNC when he had the momentum, but he didn't. Instead, it rightly looks like he's pulling this stuff out of a hat in an attempt to pull his campaign out of a tailspin, which only makes things worse.

Re: McCain telegraphing his punches

brent — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 13:00:46 -0000

Well think about it. McCain is boxed in on this. Obama and later Biden called him out in no uncertain terms. How else was McCain going to respond to a direct question of his manhood on this? I mean he could have tried to deflect the question and talk about how he wants to focus on larger issues but we all know how that would play, especially to his base.

Look, there are politicians that are nimble and clever enough to respond to this sort of challenge in an effective way. McCain is decidedly not one of those pols. His entire public persona and political appeal is about macho bluster and his conflation of honor with a boundless willingness to fight. I knew, and I think just about everyone knew, as soon as I saw Obama call him out that McCain's response was a foregone conclusion. It couldn't have ended any other way.

Re: McCain telegraphing his punches

I want my country back — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 12:57:22 -0000

Look who else was on the board of the foundation with Bill Ayers:

“Let’s look at a few, starting with the funder. Annenberg was a lifelong Republican and former ambassador to the United Kingdom under President Richard Nixon. His widow, Leonore, has endorsed McCain.

Among the other board members who served with Obama were: Stanley Ikenberry, former president of the University of Illinois; Arnold Weber, former president of Northwestern University and assistant secretary of labor in the Nixon administration; Scott Smith, then publisher of the Chicago Tribune; venture capitalist Edward Bottum; John McCarter, president of the Field Museum; Patricia Albjerg Graham, former dean of the Harvard University Graduate School of Journalism, and a host of other mainstream folks.

“The whole idea of it being radical when it was this tie of blue-chip, white-collar, CEOs and civic leaders is just ridiculous,” said the foundation’s former development director, Marianne Philbin.

The vast majority of the foundation’s external partners were not remotely controversial. Here are a few examples: the Chicago Symphony, the University of Chicago, Loyola University, Northwestern University, the Chicago Children’s Museum, the Museum of Science and Industry, the Field Museum, the Commercial Club of Chicago, the Garfield Park Conservatory Alliance and the Logan Square Neighborhood Association.

We could go on and on with evidence that the Chicago Annenberg Challenger was a rather vanilla charitable group. For example, under the deal with Annenberg every dollar from him had to be matched by two from elsewhere. The co-funders were a host of respected, mainstream institutions, such as the National Science Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and the Chicago Public Schools.

In short, this was a mainstream foundation funded by a mainstream, Republican business leader and led by an overwhelmingly mainstream, civic-minded group of individuals.

Read the full article athttp://www.cqpolitics.com/wm...

Re: McCain telegraphing his punches

Persia — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 12:55:39 -0000

I don't even know any more. Two months ago, I would've said that it was a feint for a more aggressive attack, but that would require a level of planning and strategy I've pretty much never seen out of the McCain campaign. I'm just boggled at this point.

Re: McCain telegraphing his punches

counfoundit — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 12:55:05 -0000

McCain has stuttered & clowned through two 90-minute opportunities to bring up Ayers to Obama's face. The evidence so far indicates that McCain is (rightly) afraid to confront face to face, eye to eye. On the basis of that evidence, it is unlikely that McCain will take a chance during the last debate by overcoming his fear and throwing accusations about Ayers in Obama's face. That doesn't mean that McCain won't make such a dramatic mistake--he is crazy, losing, and backed into a corner that is bankrupt, corrupt, and strewn with the bodies left by the Bush administration.

But think about it. If McCain gives Obama to opportunity to counter his Ayers accusations, there are too many ways Obama can take it, neutralizing the accusation while opening the book on McCain's dubious associations.

I would guess that McCain is telegraphing an empty threat--empty because it is devoid of content and because he's not about to give Obama another opportunity to show him up. Nevertheless, crazy people always and everywhere reserve the right to revert to character.

Re: McCain telegraphing his punches

Angelica — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 12:52:50 -0000

(Just wondering- why are we asked to key 'foo' in the box above the comment window?)

Anyway, PeePaw is surely off his rocker these days. He looked the punk last week when he didn't mention Ayers after his campaign drove the story all week. Classic Biden over the weekend said 'where I come from, you look a man in the eye and say it to his face!) And lets face it Biden's statement crosses cultural bounds and a very clever O-camp counter btw. You got beef? and have a backbone... You take it to that person. Hell, it's even a biblical principle, taking your grievances to your brother and not letting the sun set on one's rage. Guess your right in one respect, Mac is atleast signaling that he ain't no punk. But a signal ain't a sign. Doubt he'll really slap Obama with it and it won't play well with who McCain needs to reach to win.

revealing