When the credit crunch took a sharp turn south 14 days ago, the dynamics of the Presidential race changed. McCain’s Palin bounce ceased, and as economic concerns moved front and center, McCain’s percentage of the vote gradually diminished until he was running behind Obama beyond the margin of error. Then came the announcement that McCain was suspending his campaign and threatening to skip the debate to return to Washington to help hammer out an agreement. Did McCain make the wrong decision? No. He had no choice but to do something dramatic. Did it work? No. Because McCain did little more than return to Washington, hold a press conference and pose for a picture at the White House.
Instead of serving as a broker on behalf of the House Republicans and negotiating a deal they could live with (and one better for the taxpayers), McCain took a pass on sitting at the negotiating table, and showed up for the debate after all. When he had the chance to contrast himself with the far more passive Obama (who wanted no where near this part of the national stage) and demonstrate his acumen as a hands on pol willing to dig in and get the job done, McCain went home and squandered an opportunity. His “stunt” of suspending the campaign then looked like a stunt, even more so when he walked onto the Senate floor on and quietly voted for a revised bailout bill on October 1.
McCain can ill-afford a public consumed with the economy heading into the final round of the presidential race, and to make matter worse, he missed several opportunities in the debate to score Obama on taxes, delineate his position on the bail-out package, and to refute Obama’s broadsides. The two weeks just passed is an example of how unforeseen events can affect the course of a campaign, and how a candidate blew an opportunity to take command of a situation. It has been a bad couple weeks for McCain.
