Considering the McCain campaign’s sudden change of heart

The dire straits that the nation’s economy finds itself in has done more than damage just the financial institutions of the country; it has left the McCain campaign in a bit of a muddle, as well. Consider that, prior to the invocation by the Bush administration of the bailout plan for Wall Street-or the financial rescue plan, depending on your take on the situation-overall McCain was either virtually tied with Democrat Barack Obama, or, in some polls, even in the lead by a bit.

Now look at the depths to which the McCain organization has sunk; down by as many as eleven percentage points in some nationwide tracking polls, and worse still, down by a depressingly-large number when prognostications of the electoral votes are made. McCain is down by as many as 100 electoral votes according to some polls, all of which means, if true, that Obama would only have to win a few of those so-called toss-up states to officially become the President with the funniest name ever. And-here the news for McCain keeps getting worse-those toss-up states, together with some that were thought to be strongly pro-McCain, like Indiana and North Carolina, are all the time leaning more towards Obama, as well.

Take the strange case of West Virginia. Here is a state that delivered an overwhelming victory to the Hillary Clinton campaign during this state’s Democratic primary, and, because of this, was considered a certainty for McCain this fall. Not so quick there, Chuckles! The latest polls are finding that the voters in the Mountain State now favor, yep, Obama, and not by a small percentage, either. Some pundits now have West Virginia down as strongly favoring the Democrat. And if this is true, this means that those of us in Kentucky who favor the Senator from Illinois might actually be able to take hope, to dare to dream of a turnaround here in the Bluegrass State, as well.

Well, of course, McCain and Company are aware of the situation they now find themselves in. And it isn’t as though they haven’t come up with a plan or two to turn the situation around. At first the campaign, recognizing from whence their difficulties were arising, decided, according to the New York Times, to attempt to change the tone of the campaign’s conversation, from the economy to whatever. For instance, before the last debate, the town hall style, which McCain was said to favor, McCain actually stated he would rather not talk about the economy. Unfortunately, no one got that memo out to those in the audience, that night, as the majority of their questions were on that one subject on which the GOP was attempting to stymie discussion.. So much for Plan A.

On to Plan B, McCain’s campaign message. If the voters weren’t heeding McCain’s call to stop talking about the economy, maybe he could persuade them by going off on a different tack, himself. So, with his girl, Friday from The Last Frontier, McCain started out to question the character of Barack Obama, as though that hadn’t been tried before. But McCain, et al, were in a bit of a quandary, so you do what you gotta do, and this meant resurrecting that old claim from the Democratic primary about Obama’s relationship with the so-called domestic terrorist, William Ayers, now a college professor from Obama’s hometown of Chicago.

Never mind that Ayers was a radical from the ‘60’s, at a time when Obama was at the ripe old age of eight. The fact is, according to the GOP presidential tag team, that Obama served with Ayers on a charitable foundation-these meetings were attended by a goodly number of conservative and moderate Republicans, as well-and this meant that Obama was, in the words of the Moose-hunter, “palling around with terrorists”. Of course, Ayers has long since rejected his more radical past, and Obama has also rejected any of those radical ideas that Ayers might have once had. And Ayers has, since his radical (no pun intended) reformation, been named Chicago’s “Citizen of the Year” (1997), but that wasn’t good enough for McCain, as he and Palin time and time again evoked the image of Obama as a “supporter of domestic terrorism” in a attempt to fire up the base.

But Plan B didn’t do so well, either. And it failed in two regards. One, it wasn’t playing in Peoria. In one poll, 59% of those questioned said McCain was attacking Obama’s character for political gain, while only 39% saw this as an attempt to discuss the issues. And two, the red meat being thrown to the base seems to have been a bit too strong for safe consumption, as witnessed by the reaction of the masses. In the last week or so, McCain has been met by angry supporters, and cries of “terrorist” and “off with his head” when he mentioned his opponent by name. And, here it was clear that McCain, who wasn’t benefiting politically by these attacks anyway, had to make a decision. He did, and that decision was to try to get this particular genie back in the bottle.

So, in two televised incidents last week, McCain did the unthinkable. He came to the defense of Obama when Obama’s character was questioned by a couple of supporters. In the first incident, a fellow introduced himself as a McCain advocate, disclosed the fact that he would soon be a new father, then let it be known that he was frightened by the prospect of an Obama presidency. In the second incident, a woman proclaimed that she did not trust Obama, and that he was an “Arab”.

McCain quickly responded each time- in the second incident, he even took the woman’s microphone away-and each time, to cat calls from the rest of the audience, declared that no one need be afraid of Obama, even if he did get elected. Obama is, McCain said, a good family man, he was an honorable man, and he was a good American. They simply disagreed on political issues.

Of course, McCain is to be congratulated for this. But it also needs to be recognized that had his campaign not started up this discourse to begin with, his defense of Obama might not have been necessary. Still, it’s good to know that you know have the word of Obama’s main rival when you, too, find it necessary to defend Obama from all those sham attacks he has been subjected to up till now.