Breaking!
Obama takes 9 point lead in national poll and Palin gimmick has worn off entirely.
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What? You thought I was announcing that McCain is suspending his campaign to go back to his day job?
Truth be told, this appears to be McCain’s attempt to get credit for making these discussions bipartisan, when in fact, Obama made the first move. From Obama’s Press Secretary, Bill Burton:
At 8:30 this morning, Senator Obama called Senator McCain to ask him if he would join in issuing a joint statement outlining their shared principles and conditions for the Treasury proposal and urging Congress and the White House to act in a bipartisan manner to pass such a proposal. At 2:30 this afternoon, Senator McCain returned Senator Obama’s call and agreed to join him in issuing such a statement. The two campaigns are currently working together on the details.
EW!
just read that McC asked to postpone Friday’s debate “to concentrate on the crisis.”
Ditto here. Is this how he’d act as Prez., expecting the world to wail while he works problems one a a time. If so, I hope he’s good at prioritizing.
Wail should be wait, but it fits.
Pure desperation. I wonder how Obama will respond.
I heard/read the same thing, over in a thread at TalkLeft, where I was getting hit by the PUMAs, who still come to call for tea and yelling, for calling McCain a angry, doddering, vicious old man and Palin a (metaphorical) “smallpox-laden blanket”.
Pandering to the latest whim (and doing anything to hide his latest scandal) is his day job.
It’s on the wires: McCain wants Bushie to call a leadership conference including him and Obama to work this thingy through.
I guess Paulson’s plan isn’t going too well.
Note my update: My guess is that, after Obama reached out to McCain to find common ground on the bailout, and McCain accepted an hour ago, this is his attempt to claim credit for making the first moves of bipartisanship.
Yah, pretty slick of McLame. Blatant grab to change the media narrative any way possible. “I’m the SERIOUS old man in the election!” Smacks of desperation. Their polling must be scaring the hell out them. If I’m Obama, I say no deal. Let’s change the subject of the Friday debate to the economy and duke it out right now. Bring it.
John McCain’s Sentate committees:
*Armed Services
*Commerce/Science/Transportation
(and C/S/T Subcomm on Aviation Operations and Safety)
*Consumer Affairs, Insurance, and Auto Safety
*Interstate Commerce, Trade and Tourism
*Science, Technology and Innovation
*Surface Transportation and Merchant Marine Infrastructure, Safety and Security
A paranoid might think this was part of a plan made right after Obama took the nomination to keep McBush from having to debate Obama.
I suggest changing the topic of the first debate to the current crisis. The evil part of me says that Bush should be invited as well.
Boxturtle (And exactly what work is McBush going to do that his aides normally don’t?)
I smell Rove.
I also smell McCain’s cowardice.
It’s one thing to issue a joint statement of principles – not a bad idea. It’s another to turn and go from that to I’m suspending my campaign to go back to Washington and look Leaderly.
It is not cowardice to retreat in the face of a much stronger enemy.
Boxturtle (If you were McBush, would YOU want to end up in Obama’s POW camp?)
But it is an admission – by McCain – that he’s beaten.
At this point in the campaign, it should and will likely be fatal to his hopes. His only hope is to spin it into trying to get off his “fundamentals of the economy are strong” flagpole-stuck-in-the-ground.
I’m Obama, I respond by saying “These are the joint principles. The Congress and Treasury are full of very capable people who have been working this issue for some time. Me and McCain jumping in now will only complicate and slow things down. Let’s, McCain and I, take the time to explain to the American people – through the context of a debate (it would be disrespectful of us to all the people who did all the prep work for the debate, plus a lot of people are looking forward to watching it) – how the problem arose, what we are having people do toward resolving it, and where we will be going from here. After all, as President, one does have to delegate, trust that the subordinates will do their jobs well and follow up when they don’t.”
Lemme go OT to get right on-topic.
Anyone ever seen that movie “The Cooler“, with Wm. H. Macy as the guy who works in a casino spreading bad luck to people who’ve been winning? It’s been on cable.
There’s a scene with Paul Sorvino as a half-washed-up lounge singer, also a serious junkie, where Alec Baldwin (the casino manager) is discussing some contractual/performance matter while holding Sorvino’s fix for the night. You can see the jones popping through until big, tough Sorvino is crying “gimme, give it to me, come on”, breaking down into a bawling infant.
That scene has been playing in my mind all week as we watch Paulson and Bernanke try to persuade the world that they neeed and gotta have that $700 Billion now, now, now! They’re Sorvino, the junkie.
One also should note that Baldwin gave Sorvino a “hot” shot.
Just thinking out loud here. I don’t know what the exposure of the various financial houses is with regard to the credit default swaps. Obviously the logistics of bundled mortgages would require a foreclosure agent. Both the credit default swaps and the bundled mortgage packages are ultimately secured by the market value of the underlying real estate. The fundamental issue is the order of default, in other words will the Government buy out the credit default swaps and swallow this exposure for the financial institutions or whether it will create a false value model for the underlying real estate by taking it off the market. By rolling the debt into a tax obligation perhaps it paves the way for a new economy by maintaining credit liquidity. The underlying question will be who will have the remaining equity to lead in the establishment of the building of the new economy. By favoring an investing class market factors are removed from the equation and an entitled class is established to plan economic development. Can some one explain to me again that the bail out is nothing more than the retrenchment of an oligarchy.
In the end then ironically Obama becomes the candidate who represents the interests of greater market forces and so the promise of greater dynamism, entrepreneurial spirit and ultimately realistic economic growth under market principles. Funny how positions shift in the churning of vested interest. What is so wrong with a program of social compassion while letting Wall Street lie in the bed it has made?
Like most of the comments on this thread, the evidence remains to be displayed. At this point, on the same publicly accessible record, it could be ventured with as much force that, given he actually has some banking personal bank experience, and that his mother actually spent her career in micro-banking loans and follow-up [I realize the limitations of scale and complexity] – given his intellectual gifts – given the evidence that he has been made aware of the reaction from progressives at least to his end position on the FISA sell-out [also by Olbermann, who has a regular audience comprised of a lot of his supporters], he could be up to something …restorative, anyway, maybe even redemptive. Revolutionary though is beyond hope, inconsistent with his writings and record, and besides the man’s still trying to win election as president.
Bottom line: the whole world will get to hear it, and read it, and study it, and dissect it, and it’s not a matter of whether but rather how many will want to tear him a new one over it- and meanwhile his record also supports greatly the likelihood of him being both aware of and prepared for that.
We all have our feelings about the FISA capitulation and what was really behind it. I suspect the full picture will turn out to make Obama look both a bit better and a bit worse than what is now publicly known. As to the better, I think its fair to note that Speaker Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Reid have been exceptional in the understanding, empathy, sympathy and support they’ve shown and provided to each other, and a junior first term Senator with serious ambitions to head up the entire party would conclude it prudent to invest a little of his own show of support in that regard. I also think it hasn’t done him any harm with the Blue Dogs, to say the least.
As those in the GOP are wont to say: politics ain’t bean bag. We liberals and progressives and moderate Dems are always bagging on about what a huge batch of wusses we’ve been dealt in Congress and as presidential candidates. The guy we got now is more aware of politics not being bean bag than anyone I can recall since LBJ, and maybe back further. And no, I didn’t forget Bill Clinton.
I hope the Obama campaign is all over this. The chickenshit.
War Hero Quits Debate : Refuses To Fight For Country
I like to point out to all of the Right Wing wack jobs who post on my local newspapers board that John McCain did not find it necessary to take time out of his campaigning to go vote for increased benefits for our Veterans and their families but he sure as heck can high tail it back to bail out his rich CEO buddies. This makes the Right Wing nuts heads explode.
Oooo.
My evil twin would like to buy your evil twin a beer and trade snarks.
Boxturtle (Or would that be conspiracy and get us arrested by DHS?)
Here, Here. I’ll drink to that.
Thanks ew.
digg
Postpone the debates, postpone the press conferences, postpone the election? Let’s go forward, eight long years is long enough.
What, John McCain is too busy to debate? Well then! Let Sarah Palin do it for him!
john cole points out mccain’s bundle of lobbyists need to get back to d.c. “to get their cut of the $700 billion.”
National Enquirer is breaking Palin affair story.
Between that, the lid coming off Troopergate by mid-Oct, and the fact that she is clearly not ready to answer anyone’s question about anything (because she will come off as a nasal Tina Fey-looking bad imitation of that You Tube of the gibbering Miss Carolina)…..
I think she may need to spend more time with her family.
Hey, you mean Mcnobrain is going to show up in the Senate for once? The guy has been MIA for months…NOW he’s going to start doing his job?
The heck with postponing those silly little debates. I think Bush and Cheney should resign immediately, pleading extreme malfeasance, and turn the country over to Pelosi as interim until the next inauguration.
Bob in HI
Link: http://www.msnbc.com/id/26872907/
McCain suspends campaign, to move back to DC. .”until economic crisis is resolved.” He seeks to delay Friday night’s debate.
McCain’s advisers say they will do all the debates but the schedule is up in the air.”
They also deny that there is a political calculation in this and say without action the country could slide into a Depression by Monday and added “we’ll see 12 percent unemployment if action is not completed.”
Depression by Monday??? Economic Expert McCain and Silly Sarah to the rescue!!
I don’t quite understand Burton’s statement. Does this really mean Obama is on board for a quick bill? Or is there an out? There can’t possibly be something Friday, can there? It seems to me Obama should categorize McCain’s and Palin’s Black Monday and Depression comments as panic and fear-mongering.
Kudos to the McSame/MsBull…winkle campaign for their latest in “shiny-thing” gimmickry.
But of course, this is no substitute for substance!
How can this McSame/MsBull…winkle campaign subsist on nothing but “shiny-thing” gimmickry you ask?
When you’ve got nothing of substance that anyone wants, your campaign has become a mockery of late-nite talk shows and you’re falling off the cliff in the opinion polls, well then just trot some more “shiny-thing” gimmickry.
As in this long, long line of “shiny-thing” gimmickry:
– A moose is loose Sarah MsBull…winkle
– We are all Georgians now.
– We should have had more regulation.
– The Surge has been successful.
– A chicken in every pot.
– A rabbit in every hat.
McSame will play the very same role in leading us out of this financial ditch as he has done on all things economic during his entire career.
That will be nothing, nada, zilch!. McSame, after all, knows nothing about economics. He’s said so himself, repeatedly and endlessly.
And what pray tell can we expect from McSame/MsBull…winkle campaign going forward?
Why more “shiny-thing” gimmickry, of course!
And it might just sell to the very same
Repugsfolks who invested in Pet Rocks.In your list you forgot: blame the whole crisis on Fannie Mae and Obama.
Marcy,
Could you comment as to whether or not the netroots (specifically bloggers) are communicating with one another to come up with a plan to propose. AARP would be an important group to include due to the vast number of retirees who will be affected by this.
I have only anecdotal evidence, and not very much of it.
Nevertheless, I’m fascinated by the intensity of outrage that I’m hearing from friends and acquaintances, many of whom have voted for Republicans in past years. (And my conversations have included a couple of suburban, white-collar evangelicals who have strong pro-life views. So when they fumed about Palin, I figured that was a significant ‘tea leaf’.)
Restores my faith in the general judgment of my fellow humans.
More, please…
McCain suspends his campaign this afternoon. So does McBush suspend elections this evening. Sadly, it is not outside the realm of reasonable possibility given the record.