Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

So I'm watching CNN about McCain deciding to suspend his campaign this week due to the Wall Street crisis.

OK, odd but it kind of sort of makes sense.

But CNN points out this is THE THIRD TIME HE'S DONE IT... THIS MONTH!!!

Once for the hurricane, once for September 11th, and now for Wall Street.

Y'know a president does have to deal with more than one thing at once. This sort of stuff just makes me wonder if he really wants the job.

Oh and when did Obama start stuttering? At the debate ever sentence started with a stutter.

Weird.

Nerves I guess.

I don't know much about the Debates, but I think I'm right when I say they are make or break for the candidates. I dare say as they settle into their stride he'll stop stuttering.

The Obama stutter is a vocal stall, like prefacing a sentence with 'uh' or 'um'. He has had the same issue in hostile interviews, and many of his stump appearances.

dogma wrote:The Obama stutter is a vocal stall, like prefacing a sentence with 'uh' or 'um'. He has had the same issue in hostile interviews, and many of his stump appearances.

Yeah but I don't remember seeing it before. And I learned in #$%^ing high school debate to just keep my mouth shut until I was sure coherent words would come out.

Plus he called McCain Jim and Tom during the debate. He was really in poor form.

It seems like McCain is trying to show that he's more interested in the issues of the nation then in campaigning, and illustrating leadership qualities over debate qualities.

It's an interesting tactic. I'm interested to see if it works.

McCain stuggled at least as much; struggling to pronounce Zardari and Ahmadinejad. Plus the whole Kissinger thing.

Doctor Thunder wrote:It seems like McCain is trying to show that he's more interested in the issues of the nation then in campaigning, and illustrating leadership qualities over debate qualities.

It's an interesting tactic. I'm interested to see if it works.

Would not leading a successful campaign be demonstrating leadership qualities ? Assuming that a democratic election is in the interests of the nation.

reds8n wrote:

Doctor Thunder wrote:It seems like McCain is trying to show that he's more interested in the issues of the nation then in campaigning, and illustrating leadership qualities over debate qualities.

It's an interesting tactic. I'm interested to see if it works.

Would not leading a successful campaign be demonstrating leadership qualities ? Assuming that a democratic election is in the interests of the nation.

*shrugs*

I suppose it depends on your priorities. I'm not voting for either of them, so I'm merely commenting from a spectator viewpoint.

reds8n wrote:Would not leading a successful campaign be demonstrating leadership qualities ? Assuming that a democratic election is in the interests of the nation.

Sadly, no. A successful campaign means winning. That is where your Karl Roves come in with wedge issues and other strategies that have nothing to do with leadership but with getting people riled up.

you Know i don't think bush really wanted to win either i think he just ran for gaks and giggles

Doctor Thunder wrote:It seems like McCain is trying to show that he's more interested in the issues of the nation then in campaigning, and illustrating leadership qualities over debate qualities.

It's an interesting tactic. I'm interested to see if it works.

But choosing our next president IS an issue the nation has to face. McCain didn't just cancel a speech or change his travel plans, he SUSPENDED EVERYTHING no ads, no fund raising, his staff didn't even email reporters.

I can see why McCain himself was needed in Washington but telling his whole campaign staff - whose job is y'know campaigning - to sit on their butts while he was elsewhere...

I just don't get it.

However shutting the whole thing down can be seen as an honorable thing to do- no half assed measures- total focus on the problem at hand.

Join the Mobile Infantry and save the Galaxy. Service guarantees citizenship. Would you like to know more?

Ahtman wrote:

reds8n wrote:Would not leading a successful campaign be demonstrating leadership qualities ? Assuming that a democratic election is in the interests of the nation.

Sadly, no. A successful campaign means winning. That is where your Karl Roves come in .

Indeed. But would not appointment of said loathsome individual to enable you to win show some degree of leadership quality, even if it is limited to knowing who to get to do what.

It smacks more of lacking the ability to be president yourself, but having the ability to hire someone to be president for you.

Waaagh_Gonads wrote:However shutting the whole thing down can be seen as an honorable thing to do- no half assed measures- total focus on the problem at hand.

Join the Mobile Infantry and save the Galaxy. Service guarantees citizenship. Would you like to know more?

Except that his campaign had to do more work to cancel the ads he'd already had slotted into place. If his concern was the economy he could have set his campaign on auto-pilot and then gone about saving America by involving himself in the economy he admits knowing nothing about. But instead he and his campaign spent a lot of time showing how they weren't campaigning. It was a really transparent ploy.

Letterman, of all people, may have done the most to break the illusion. Last time I checked you don't need makeup to solve a financial crisis.

Waaagh_Gonads wrote:However shutting the whole thing down can be seen as an honorable thing to do- no half assed measures- total focus on the problem at hand.

Right. I can see them setting up a pretty persuasive argument later on. "When the floods happened, my opponent was campaigning while I was solving the problem. When the banks failed, my opponent was fund raising while I was solving the problem."

Now, I'm not saying I agree with the argument, I'm just saying that I can see them using it to their advantage.

lord_sutekh wrote:It smacks more of lacking the ability to be president yourself, but having the ability to hire someone to be president for you.

Surely this was the Neo-con tactic with Bush.

Doctor Thunder wrote:

Waaagh_Gonads wrote:However shutting the whole thing down can be seen as an honorable thing to do- no half assed measures- total focus on the problem at hand.

Right. I can see them setting up a pretty persuasive argument later on. "When the floods happened, my opponent was campaigning while I was solving the problem. When the banks failed, my opponent was fund raising while I was solving the problem."

Now, I'm not saying I agree with the argument, I'm just saying that I can see them using it to their advantage.

McCain wasn't solving the problem though, he has got nothing to do with FEMA or the Army or whatever, and he isn't the governor of Louisiana or the Mayor of New Orleans.

It was more like a stunt to show the nation that he "really cared".

Which might work.

Kilkrazy wrote:

Doctor Thunder wrote:

Waaagh_Gonads wrote:However shutting the whole thing down can be seen as an honorable thing to do- no half assed measures- total focus on the problem at hand.

Right. I can see them setting up a pretty persuasive argument later on. "When the floods happened, my opponent was campaigning while I was solving the problem. When the banks failed, my opponent was fund raising while I was solving the problem."

Now, I'm not saying I agree with the argument, I'm just saying that I can see them using it to their advantage.

McCain wasn't solving the problem though, he has got nothing to do with FEMA or the Army or whatever, and he isn't the governor of Louisiana or the Mayor of New Orleans.

It was more like a stunt to show the nation that he "really cared".

Which might work.

Right, and that's why I said, I'm interested to see if the tactic works.

Kilkrazy wrote:McCain wasn't solving the problem though, he has got nothing to do with FEMA or the Army or whatever, and he isn't the governor of Louisiana or the Mayor of New Orleans.

It was more like a stunt to show the nation that he "really cared".

Which might work.

It was a pretty risky gambit, albeit one with a potentially massive upside. If Obama had fallen into line and agreed to cancel the debate, McCain would have come out on top (something I suspect Kerry and a few others might have done). If Obama had continued campaigning but failed to articulate a strong counter to McCain's ploy, it could have worked for McCain (but the double argument of 'no more important time for the American people to decide' and 'president's need to be able to do two things' seemed pretty solid). If McCain had somehow managed to sell his appearance in Washington as decisive factor in passing the bail out package it could have worked (but McCain could only just get his own side's pundits to claim he helped, most everyone treated it as the stunt it was).

So instead it looks like a last minute ploy that fell on its face. According to fivethirtyeight Obama's lead is now equal or greater than at any previous point in the campaign, so it look like the general voting public agree as well.