They'll be open all night.
I'll throw a question out there: to have a good night, what does John McCain need to do?
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Well he could start by actually saying whether he is for or against the bailout, and explaining what leadership, exactly, he has shown over the last three days. 
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Announce that Gov. Palin is dropping out of the race after her horrific interview with Katie Couric.
McCain has proved that he is very confused and whimsical. He claimed that fundamentals of the economy was strong last week and this week he said economy is in it's worst shape and created a stunt of suspending his campaign. Mccain is just clueless and running his campaign on his whims. McCain is unfit to be a pres.
Apologize for picking Palin and concede the election.
"What does John McCain need to do?"
Ambinder, Why not a 'What does John McCain need to do with regards to Sarah Palin to avoid becoming a complete joke." instead of this ridiculous line of blogging.
McCain should just drop trou and moon the nation. It would be the same sort of gesture he made when he picked Sarah Palin. Plus it would remind everyone of the old Dick Tracy villain Pruneface. (Hat Tip: An old National Lampoon cartoon.)
1. Be passionate, but not angry.
Honestly. I think there is very little he CAN do. I'm embarassed for him, and I would never vote for him in a million years. To the average voter, his credibility is shot. He has made too many withdrawals from the truthiness account.
With the expectations game as it stands, all that Obama has to do to lose is breathe wrong, all that McCain has to do to win is breathe.
Really, McCain is like a team playing for its playoff life right now: He can win his game and still miss the cut. For McCain to have a big night, the first thing that needs to happen is Obama has to be awful, terrible, horrible, etc. If Obama has a really bad night (which is admittedly possible), McCain then has to hit his 10-second answer out of the park. If he can do that, he can have a big night. However, if Obama is even average, no matter how good McCain is, it won't matter.
The Obama campaign is right: McCain needs a game changing zinger. But he's in a tough spot--he has to do something spectacular but keep his temper in check. He can't be "safe" McCain, he has to be freewheelin' McCain--but as the last week has shown, that carries substantial risk. Obviously he'll try to spin the last couple days as productive and some kind of triumph of leadership but I can't wait to see how. Because I don't think the media is buying it--and if Marc is right about the influence of the post-debate analysis, that's a problem for McCain. Letterman has an axe to grind and isn't going to give him any gimmes. The rest of the media isn't necessarily going to either.
At ease, Joel. :-) Agree that McCain needs to play up his support of the surge in big way. Obama can come at it from pre-war judgment, and getting-out judgment, the latter especially. If McCain acts like the Bush-Maliki plan to get out is cool with him, he'd be in a position to say that he supported the surge and now we can get out with heads held high. That'd play well with undecideds, I think.
Apologize for what he has become and endorse Obama. Honestly, I don't know how you recover from being a national embarrassment .. and I voted for him in 2000.
You're not alone in that, Martin. I wasn't able to vote in 2000, but he was what got me into politics. I never thought I'd think it, but I'm beginning to wonder if Bush wasn't the lesser of two whack-jobs.
If given an opportunity to ask a question of Obama, he needs to ask: "Senator Obama, the New York Times has accused you of running misleading ads about my campaign (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/26/us/politics/26ads.html?ref=politics). "Now, I understand how ads tend to play fast and loose in a political campaign, but now I hear reports that you are calling on local law enforcement to target anyone who runs a misleading ad during the presidential campaign. (http://campaignspot.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZmZmZDg3NjkzMTk3OGZiMjc0YjVhOWUyY2I5YjY1ZTE=) "Please tell me Senator, do you think you should be targeted by law enforcement for your misleading ads?"
He needs to use a mind-control ray to zombify the electorate. Either that or he needs to goad Obama into calling him Whitey...
It is easy. He has to do three things: 2) He has to show why he was needed in D.C. and no one cared if Sen. Obama showed or not; 3) He has to remind/teach the voters that it was the Democrats with majorities in both Houses, who needed him, not Sen. Obama.
Nothing. The commentariat will give it to him for showing up. It will be 'game changing.' Obama may not recover. It is as forgone as the WSJ online ad; it was a very apropos buy.
He needs to have Cindy bring enough beer for everyone. That, my friends, is leadership we can believe in!
McCain could start to repair his self-inflicted wounds by appearing calm and relaxed - Presidential - while avoiding the other extreme of disengagement. In other words, appearing steady, not erratic. Something I doubt he can do: he just seems old, suffering, and tired to me lately. My prediction is that he'll thrown lots of unthinking punches. Some will land; but he'll appear desperate, while Obama, of course, won't.
Appear stable and reassuring. Own foreign policy. Induce a gaffe from Obama.
"to have a good night, what does John McCain need to do?" Watch the first Republican debate of the primaries. I thought McCain was really good then. Calmly asserting his points and speaking to the audience and not at them. His campaign and message was different then to what it is now.
John McCain needs to come off as stable, deep, and 'with it'. He needs to force Obama into a mistake to solidify America's uneasyness with Obama. If McCain does not, and he allows Obama to tie him, Obama wins big. BIG. No one thinks Obama can hang with McCain. Remember the huge bump Obama got when he finally debated Hillary 1 on 1? People were like...oh, he isn't an empty suit. John McCain can't let, to paraphrase the Clinton campaign, Barack Obama's horse to get out of the stable. If he does, he can't catch him. People just want to make sure Obama can handle foreign policy. That is a small bar to clear. The onus is on McCain. Brian
FYI we're tracking lies during the campaign season, and will be sorting them out during the debate. If anyone sees any, let us no. Right now the score on provable lies is 9(d)-18(r)
John MCain doesn't have to do anything. The media always declare republicans as the debate winners. The fix is in. The media is already playing up the Obama is "too cool" meme and Chris Matthews, that so-called Obama lover but GE whore nonethelss, just called Barack Obama a man of elite background. Someone who was raised by a single mom of limited means is of elite background, while Mr 7 houses is the everyman. No wonder John McCain already put up ads saying he won. I am sure GE, Viacom, News Corps, Time Warner, and Disney have dedided that they need to give McCain a boosrt tonight. They need the race to be close for ratings and they don't want the dems to get too far ahead because as corporatists, they are part-and-parcell of the pillaging of America's wealth. The fix is in....unless McCain really f*cks up, the media will declare him the winner.
McCain needs to be concise. Let Obama give the long winded answers. Be folksy as he was in Texas. If Obama rambles on enough he will start to make mistakes and become confusing.
As lampwick says, he needs to not appear erratic. No getting confused. No misunderstanding the question, then insisting that he wasn't confused, he really does want to declare war on Spain or appoint Andrew Cuomo to a random position while defenestrating the present occupant. And again to echo lampwick, given his performance over the past few weeks I'm doubtful he can pull this off. (Side note: Why bring Giuliani? And Mrs. Giuliani?) Like Martin, I voted for him in 2000. This January I was amazed that the Republicans were actually going to nominate a guy I might vote for. Then the flip flops became apparent. Then the many senior moments. He's not the man he was 8 years ago.
Well neither one answered the first question, lol...
Half of all Americans who file for bankruptcy and end up having their homes foreclosed got there as a result of a medical crisis...when will the candidates realize the connection?
As long as John Kennedy doesn't show up in Obama, refusing to be minimized and spanked, McCain is having a good night.
McCain needs to take a lonnng nap and when he wakes up he needs to forget all of his ancient boring stories. He wasn't at all presidential. Good old war veteran senator maybe, but president? No way.
John Mc Cain told more good "stories" tonight - he keeps talking about when he was here and when he was there - Who cares? The real question is -Where will you take this great nation if you are President? I shudder to think of where we will go - a continuing downward spiral should he and Palin get in, He relies on old thinking and old policies that do not work!!! - Deregulation and pandering to Big Business and the Super Rich as well as a war that Bush lied about got us to this point - 8 years of ineptitude in the White House - We cannot afford 4 more years of the same rhetoric. Mc Cain is no longer a Maverick- he has fallen right into line by now suporting Bush's tax breaks for the rich and selecting an extreme right winger as his running mate - after he previously referred to Fallwell and Robertson as "intolerable" I guess he thinks Palin is tolerable and he can fool women voters in America. What is even scarier is imagining that if he should fall ill (remember melanoma?), Palin would be our President, OMG - While Mc Cain relies on failed policies, Palin doesn't even have a good grasp on what those policies are - remember her answer to Katie Couric regarding the Bush Doctrine? Do you think she got back to Katie yet? and on foreigh affairs - Alaska borders Canada and Russia so this dimwit thinks she has foreign policy experience.
While John McCain wasn't my guy through the primaries, there is no question in my mind who won the night. As Obama got more and more visibly incensed when McCain confronted him on issue after issue, McCain got more confident. Obama tried to interrupt and deny, McCain kept on attacking. Obama really showed just how shallow his campaign really is, all talk and quips, and not much to back it up now that the gloves are off. I did think Obama made an honest effort to appear presidential, but in the end really couldn't pull it off. I don't think the Jesse Jackson rhyme speaks will play very will across the table from Putin, or anyone else for that matter. And oh, maybe he could have agreed with McCain a few more times, I bet his debate coaches loved that. No doubt, McCain 1 Obama 0
I noticed something during the debate that no one else seemed to have mentioned.When Sarah Palin talks about things familiar or things with which she's comfortable, she uses her entire mouth (both sides left and right) but other times she uses the right side only. When she talks about McCains agenda this happens. When she talks about her own accomplishments such the things she has done in Alaska or when she talks about her family she uses the left & right sides of her mouth. If you were to play the tape of the debate you can see what I'm talking about.A face reading analyst can give you more detail on this.In my opinion she is not comfrtable or she is saying something that she doesn't completely agree with.I know that there are some people who always talk from either the right or left side but Mrs. Palin subconscious switch. It would be interesting to contrast her performance during the debate with I have studied graphology. Through it one can see thing sin writing I think reverting to speaking from one side of ones mouth when talking about one subject then using the full mouth reveals something about a person that that person has not made public. Thank you, Billy
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Announce that he is dropping out of the race?
Posted by Rob In PA | September 26, 2008 7:37 PM