The Final Debate: McCain Stock Plunges Further
Eugene Robinson
Washington Post
The narrative arc of the final presidential debate did not work in John McCain’s favor. It was a line similar to the one traced by the Dow Jones Industrial Average in today’s trading session.
McCain started quite well, getting off the most memorable line of the evening -- that if Barack Obama had wanted to run against George Bush, he should have run four years ago. From there, I thought, things went downhill for him.
The big question leading up to tonight was whether McCain would swing for the fences, bringing up William Ayers and all the rest of the innuendo that his campaign has been spreading about Barack Obama, or whether he would forget all that and stick to the issues. The polls have been unambiguous in reporting that when McCain goes negative in these debates, he turns off independent voters. And on a day when the Dow spiraled down another 733 points, clearly people were in the mood to hear what these guys propose to do to rescue the economy.
But McCain is trailing, and he has been known to frequent establishments where gambling is permitted. He got into a rhythm of raising some doubt about Obama’s integrity in every response, and to do so he had to introduce themes and issues that I believe most voters considered distractions. The Ayers stuff -- which, truth be told, Obama basically goaded him into bringing up -- sounded like a personal attack based on events that happened when Obama was 8. McCain’s mention of ACORN was surely met with blank stares in living rooms across the land. And when he accused Obama of fomenting “class warfare,” I wondered if I had slipped through some kind of time warp.
(Continued here.)
Washington Post
The narrative arc of the final presidential debate did not work in John McCain’s favor. It was a line similar to the one traced by the Dow Jones Industrial Average in today’s trading session.
McCain started quite well, getting off the most memorable line of the evening -- that if Barack Obama had wanted to run against George Bush, he should have run four years ago. From there, I thought, things went downhill for him.
The big question leading up to tonight was whether McCain would swing for the fences, bringing up William Ayers and all the rest of the innuendo that his campaign has been spreading about Barack Obama, or whether he would forget all that and stick to the issues. The polls have been unambiguous in reporting that when McCain goes negative in these debates, he turns off independent voters. And on a day when the Dow spiraled down another 733 points, clearly people were in the mood to hear what these guys propose to do to rescue the economy.
But McCain is trailing, and he has been known to frequent establishments where gambling is permitted. He got into a rhythm of raising some doubt about Obama’s integrity in every response, and to do so he had to introduce themes and issues that I believe most voters considered distractions. The Ayers stuff -- which, truth be told, Obama basically goaded him into bringing up -- sounded like a personal attack based on events that happened when Obama was 8. McCain’s mention of ACORN was surely met with blank stares in living rooms across the land. And when he accused Obama of fomenting “class warfare,” I wondered if I had slipped through some kind of time warp.
(Continued here.)
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