Bullet Thoughts

Okay so the McCain campaign suspension thing happened pretty quickly yesterday and I've been busy (I went to a hiphop show, watched Project Runway, and slept...more on these things later), so I have had a lot of different gut reactions and brief analysis going on in my head about the whole thing. I can't seem to form a coherent essay about it at the moment, so I'll just give you the bullet points:

• Suggested moving the debate to October 2--the date of the VP debate--and then moving the VP debate to an unidentified later date. Isn't that convenient? He's afraid his gimmick VP pick will not perform well, even after her foreign policy crash course photo op this week, that he needs to reschedule the last crucial weeks of the election campaigns.
• The American people deserve to hear from the horses' mouths exactly what the candidates think and say about the issues. That's what the debates are for. This especially goes for McCain, who has seemingly flipped on a lot of issues in a short amount of time, and who prefers not talking with reporters and only giving recorded statements without the opportunity for questions. It's time for him to start being accountable.
• I agree with Letterman--you can't take a "time-out" as President. A good leader surrounds himself with competent team members who could foreseeably take over if necessary. McCain doesn't trust Palin to take over his "campaign" for a few days? What does that say about her? More importantly, what does that say about his leadership skills?
• He never actually stopped campaigning--only canceled Letterman, went on Katie Couric, still has other speeches, hasn't stopped collecting campaign money, hasn't stopped ads.
• McCain admittedly knows little about the economy--how is he going to all the sudden step up and save it?
• Another note on leadership---you have competent people on committees for reasons. Those on the congressional committees are working on the bill because that's what they're good it. As a good leader, you let the people who have the expertise and step in only when there is a standstill. There was no standstill in Congress, they just weren't sure how people would vote.
• Barney Frank came out and said they were pretty much done and were just working out the small details--what would McCain be able to do?

Now I know this all sounds like ranting, and it is. I'm not pretending to be completely objective here, but this is how I see it: McCain's campaign has turned this crucially important election in the middle of major major problems into a circus of stunts and gimmicks.

Josh Marshall at TPM says it best I think:

"One of the advantages of running a presidential campaign is that roughly half the country is deeply committed to believing or at least saying that virtually anything you do or say makes sense. And so it is here. But, look, if you were living in the real world, if you were some hotshot young executive at a Fortune 500 company trying to rise in the ranks, and you pulled some whacked crap like this, it would probably get you blackballed permanently. People would think you were either deeply unreliable or maybe just had a screw loose. And yet here he is -- is he kidding? He can't debate Barack Obama because he's got to go to Washington and save the economy? It's like the biggest 'dog at my homework' in history."