Will he or won’t he?

John McCain has exactly 2 more opportunities to speak in front of an audience of millions before the election. Tonight, he gets his vaunted “Town Hall” format that he claims he is so great at. Adding to the drama of tonight’s debate is McCain’s decision to go “scorched earth” on Obama’s character. Palin’s out there lying through her teeth about all number of things. I suppose that’s easy to do when you don’t have to worry about talking to the press afterwards. She re-cycled the Ayers association that Sean Hannity has been desperately trying to make an issue since January by telling an audience that Barack was “pallin’ around with terrorists”. Of course, this begs the question: Why was she pallin’ around (and banging) somebody associated with this?”

Just imagine for a moment if Michelle Obama had been a member of a political party that wanted Illinois to secede from the union and which has ties to Iran. Rush would have had a heart attack by now. The hypocrisy is mind-blowing.

So, will McCain himself bring this stuff up? The stunningness by which McCain has been dropping in the polls the past couple of weeks is certainly the reason for the change in strategy to one of “This Barack Obama guy is different, he likes terrorists!”. I think McCain will definitely bring this up. What other choice does he have? He is going to lose unless he can change the conversation from the economy to a referendum on Obama. His own advisors have even said as much: “If we keep talking about the economic crisis, we’re going to lose.”

Every Obama supporter has known this day was coming. There was always going to be a point in which the Republicans began their hack and slash campaign in overt fashion. This is not a question about McCain’s dishonorable campaign. That was expected and is a given. It’s a question of whether or not Obama is ready for it. We saw this story play out in 2004 with the systematic destruction of John Kerry. Kerry was rightly criticized by everyone for not fighting back. Obama must have a response to these smears in the can and ready to go. His campaign has been, arguably, the best run and managed campaign in history. It would be monumentally stupid if he and his inner circle had not prepared for this eventuality. The Ayers connection is totally ridiculous even on the face of it, as even Republicans who worked with Ayers have said. What Obama needs to do is make the knee-jerk American public understand how ridiculous it is. Maybe he tosses out a funny line that disarms McCain completely. Maybe he turns to John McCain and says “So are those Republicans who were on the same charitable boards as Ayers and I terrorist sympathizers as well, John?” I doubt he brings up Palin’s radical associations, but maybe he does? Maybe he says something like “John McCain said there is a ’special place in hell’ for the people who smeared him in 2000….which is strange because he’s hired those same people to attack me”? Keating 5 is the most logical as it is explicit evidence of how McCain handles a financial crisis. Or maybe he uses more of McCain’s own words against him?

That’s really Obama’s final test. He’s hurdled everything that has been thrown at him. He defeated the Clinton Machine and he’s on the verge of defeating the entire Conservative Machine. If he can come out of this debate making the American people understand that he isn’t going to stock his cabinet with Al-Qaeda members, then McCain’s final negative salvo will fall on deaf ears and then….what does he have left to counter with?

I expect McCain to fire his heatseekers. I expect Obama to deploy countermeasures. If they work successfully, McCain will crash his plane again. If they don’t, then it’s gonna be a tough slog to November 4th.

Filed under: MaT's Journal, MaT's stuff