McCain Steps up Attacks
A series of polls taken in the aftermath of McCain’s suspension of his campaign and Friday’s debate show movement towards Obama. Obama now stands nearly or above Obama’s largest leads of the campaign, standing now at about 5-6% nationally, with undecided voters down. Taken together, the McCain campaign appears to now realize that last week’s manuevors fell flat with swing voters and are scrambling to find a different tone.
Many commentators were disappointed that McCain did not seize the initiative at Friday’s debate by exploring the roots of the present economic crisis and the role of government regulation in creating the housing bubble. Today’s speech upped the the rhetoric with the renewed use of the catchphrase “Country First or Obama First” and strong assertions that Obama cannot be trusted to tell the truth. The Obama campaign’s spokesman Bill Burton had an immediate, sneering response that McCain “packs a lot of lies in a short period of time.” Spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter piled on moments later by asserting McCain was lying and that is more evidence of his “erratic” tendencies.
In the background of today’s swinging by McCain, the bailout bill stands now at a very close margin in the House of Representatives while the market continues its slide. Voting just started in the House and both parties are working on head counts. It is essentially a game of chicken, with both Speaker Pelosi and Minority Leader Boehner trying to put forth as few votes as possible, and the package may not pass.
Indeed, should the market continue to slide if the bailout package passes, the focus may turn to who gets the blame for a flawed package. Never before in modern presidential history has the campaign been so heavily driven by day-to-day economic news. So far, Obama’s campaign has capitalized on the escalating daily negative news to build a lead and both campaigns are saying they’ll “probably” vote for the package on Wednesday.
A large focus of McCain’s speech today was his action and Obama’s “standing on the sidelines” during the economic crisis with reference to his campaign’s suspension. The next 24 hours and the direction of the news cycle – who gets credit, who gets blame – will determine whether McCain can regain the initiative he lost when the economic crisis escalated with Lehman’s bankruptcy.