According to Yahoo News, Barack Obama backed away from an earlier challenge from McCain to debate.
WASHINGTON – Democratic candidate Barack Obama on Saturday backed away from rival John McCain’s challenge for a series of joint appearances, agreeing only to the standard three debates in the fall.
In May, when a McCain adviser proposed a series of pre-convention appearances at town hall meetings, Obama said, “I think that’s a great idea.” In summer stumping on the campaign trail, McCain has often noted that Obama had not followed through and joined him in any events.
Obama’s reversal on town hall debates is part of a play-it-safe strategy he’s adopted since claiming the nomination and grabbing a lead in national polls. Advisers to the Illinois senator, speaking on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to discuss strategy, say Obama is reluctant to take chances or give McCain a high-profile stage now that Obama’s the front-runner.
This is just plain unacceptable. Obama’s crafty enough to know that whether you’re playing chess or political games, sometimes you have to risk losing in order to win. Other times you simply need to make a move. It’s another lost opportunity, for it represented a chance for a gifted orator to show up an opponent who can’t even display publicly an understanding of his own policy proposals.
No wonder the Democrat can’t close the gap. This was the latest round in a political game of chicken, and Obama swerved when he should have remained steady. If he’s going to remain this timid, the media is going to help McCain walk all over him by November.
There’s got to be something we can do about this.
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Every day we get more and more scientific proof that a person-an entire collection of people, a party, even-can function, survive, and thrive, all without a functioning spinal column. It’s truly amazing.
for writing that McSlime will win. OK, it was meant to be a call to arms, and I didn’t make that clear enough.
But what I wrote, and what you have written, and what Cenk has on the rec list at Kos right now all say the same damn thing:
Obama isn’t fighting. He’s being a wimp. He’s letting the liars define him. He is acting, in fact, exactly the same way John Kerry acted four years ago.
“Take the high road” is not a winning strategy when Rove has just been added to the oppo’s camp.
I’d suggest that the most powerful one by Obama in the last week is his request that the Florida and Michigan delegates be seated 100% at the convention (instead of the 50% formerly agreed to by the DNC).
That’s because, if the election were held today and he won Florida and Michigan, it would be a route for Obama.
We all see different things when we focus on all the myriad details about the campaigns. But for my money, I’d say this one is pretty big, even though it wasn’t focused on by the media much.