A week and a half ago, the McCain team telegraphed yet their next move, saying they were going to attack Obama hard.

Then came the ads and "palling around with terrorists".

Then came ever-increasingly rowdy and despondent crowds, some of whom chanting things that took us back decades.

It was supposed to culminate at last week's debate as McCain was expected to mention the Ayers/Obama connection, but then stepped back.

Then came even more despondent crowds, and a feeling like McCain/Palin let the genie out of the bottle and couldn't get it back in, seeming to lose control of their entire campaign.

But then came a moment of grace on Friday as John McCain defended Barack Obama, insisting that we shouldn't be scared of him as President, disspelling the rumor that Obama is a muslim.

Then the Obama/Biden camp came out and questionned McCain's integrity and called his bluff, for a second time, the first one coming the day when McCain suspended his campaign and possibly the first debate.

"Where I grew up, if you had something to say to a man, you looked him in the eye and you said to his face!" exclaimed Joe Biden this past week, in a fiery speech after returning from the death of his mother-in-law.

The question is: Will John McCain cave again to this bluff like he did with the first one? Or will he take the bait and mention William Ayers at the debate tonight?

John McCain is better than this. He knows it, and that's why he stepped back from where his handlers wanted to see the campaign go last week. But in a radio interview the other day, McCain insisted that because of the Obama/Biden ticket challenging him to bring it up, McCain said something like, "now it's certain that it'll be coming up" in the next debate.

The challenge for McCain is that his poll and favoribility numbers went down by the end of last week. The attacks work to rally the base, but to bleed independent voters, the very block McCain needs to keep together to run the table on those 6 or 7 states that are slipping away from him.

Yes or no. Does John McCain bring it up tonight?

And if so, what does Obama have planned in case he does?

It's been Obama's plan all week to bait McCain to step up and get negative in front of millions on tv. Will McCain fall into the trap?

I don't see it as a trap.

If terrorism is discussed this evening, William Ayers is a viable topic for that discussion...

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Obama's New "57 State Patriotic Pin":




Sayeth John Drake - 10/13/08: "OK, you're right, I admit to LYING"

I think a far more effective tack would be "You're running scare ads across the nation, falsely claiming I am going to take benefits from senior citizens. FactCheck.org, among other sources, says you are not telling the truth. Is lying for political gain the 'hope and change' you're trying to sell the voters?"

You can color Ayers many ways. The senior benefits ads are an outright lie. A much better anvil to hammer Obama's sleazy-politics-as-usual-dressed-up-as-something-"new" ass against.

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De duobus malis, minus est semper eligendum

Are you kidding. Old people in Florida were already pissed about that Medicare prescription drug plan passed a couple years ago, that saw many seniors pay more for drugs they need.

Last week in the WSJ, McCain's chief economic adviser said that McCain is going to pay for his health care tax credits by cutting $1.3 trillion from Medicare and Medicaid.

John McCain won't touch the third rail at a debate in front of everyone. No way, no how.

Obama's lies on senior issues: FactCheck.org: Scaring Seniors

No third rail there - Obama's ad is a lie.

Of course, being "non-partisan", you already knew this, right?

Matt

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De duobus malis, minus est semper eligendum

That "unrepentant domestic terrorist" was really just a radical hippy. Which dickhead conjured up a term that reminds us of terrorists? I smell that fat @%!$ Rove.

McCain is sucking wind, and this debate is your "Hail Karl". Not a single one of you care about what Ayers did, you just want to put a stick in Obama's spokes, which makes you faux patriots undulging in phoney outrage. You're loosing and desperate.

Go ahead and Ayers Pubbys...you've still lost. You lost when the economy exploded.

Just a radical hippy who bombed houses, public buildings, made nail-laden bombs targeting evening dances that accidentally blew up and killed other "radical hippies", whose comrades killed cops and truck drivers for money to support their bomb-making operations, and then fled like the terrorist pig coward he is for years into hiding.

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I am an American. That's the way most of us put it, just matter of factly. They are plain words, those four: you could write them on your thumbnail, or sweep them clear across this bright autumn sky. But remember too, that they are more than just words. They are a way of life. So whenever you speak them; speak them firmly, speak them proudly, speak them gratefully. I am an American. ...a tradition

And I'm looking at things through the perspective of indie/undecided voters, who don't trust McCain on domestic policies, fairly or unfairly, because of Bush's legacy on it.

Bush didn't roll out his plan very well, and it crashed and burned. It was unanimous.

So although Obama's ad isn't truthful, in the pit of the average person's stomach is the feeling that Republicans just want to privatize everything while regular people see increases in the prices of everything they need the most.

So when your main economic guy comes out and says "$1.3 trillion dollar cuts from Medicaid and Medicare", it doesn't warm people up to your promises not to cut Social Security benefits soon after that. It spooks people.

If McCain didn't have such a serious deficit in being able to communicate ideas with the rest of us (what the hell does he really think about the economic crisis and what ought to be done) than maybe he'd be able to repudiate Obama's claims in an effective way, but instead he appears lost when talking about economic and most domestic issues.

A "radical hippy" that was involved in bombings, and part of a group that was planning a mass-murder (which they would have carried out if two of their bomb-builders hadn't blown themselves up).

Matt

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De duobus malis, minus est semper eligendum

Yeah, a hippy with bombs instead of joints and hits of orange sunshine.

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Go talk about Ayers elsewhere people. I'm talking about what you think McCain ought to do about it tonight and if he'll mention it.

Geez.

bringing up ayers has to be in context, that ayers was a terrorist we know, what obama had to or has to do with that is the question, the answer is nothing.

However-


I would say;


What ayers did was not and never should really be part of the argument except in the following context- that ayers beliefs which he still holds, he injected into the community where in this is what he espouses and has with obamas guidance of said board (CAC) and money, obama at the behest of ayers used his curriculum to create a platform where in he was helping ayers in his proselytizing to school children this world view as to the US and should be examined.

His success in building a radical curriculum and foist this upon schools, is on record, the Chicago school board has pulled the plug on , they themselves said they found no benefit.

IF you believe that children in school should be radicalized as to the US being an oppressive selfish police state, and that should be part of their curriculum then that is certainly your right, and that is the point, Obama felt comfortable with this view obviously or he would not have advanced it, and since this is not the first person by any means who held such contrary views of the US, and Obama has had a relationship with or worked with as to holding these views, buyer beware, and let the people decide if that’s something they can live with.


And let the chips fall where they may.

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No individual can plan his own existence in their view.

So the state planners must arrogate to themselves the right to manipulate any sector of the economic system if the good of “society” or the “general welfare” is paramount.

Ipso- if the rights of the individual get in the way, the rights of the individual must be sublimated.

The Road to Serfdom
FA Hayek (interpretation)


Mortgage Backed Security survivor

Ayers hasn't been "radicalizing" school children.

Where's the proof of that?

The Annenberg Foundation was a Republican lead challenge to help poor school kids, and that's primarily how Obama and Ayers know each other.

"Buyer beware". That's a nice piece of paranoia, but what are we to take from that? Obama's going to do what exactly? What are you accusing him of?

Sorry Jason, I should have foreseen the implications of defending Ayers along with voting for "to Ayers".

Every forum has a different style. Apparently USPO's is to stay on topic...my bad.

No probs. I know people don't like Ayers. Just looking for punditry before the debate on what McCain's going to do and what the effects of it will be.