John McCain's Big Bailout Blunder

[stevedeshazer]

The McCain crater grows larger...

http://online.barrons.com/article/SB122307351019203759.html?mod=googlenews_barrons

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THE POLLS TELL THIS REMARKABLE STORY: GOP presidential candidate John McCain badly miscalculated when on Sept. 24, in a huge roll of the dice, he said that he'd suspend his campaign the next day in order to bring Republicans and Democrats together to save our foundering financial system. This bit of braggadocio almost immediately cost McCain the lead he'd had over Democrat Barack Obama since the second week of September.

The public backlash against his grandstanding might strike some as too harsh. After all, every campaigning politician engages in over-the-top theatrics and woos naïve voters with exorbitant promises; Obama makes promises by litany.

But we can't recall any other instance in the long history of electoral politics where a candidate made a promise and then actually tried to make good on it prior to the election. This unusual misstep was worsened by McCain's failure to deliver the goods. He ended up looking more like Doodyville's Mayor Phineas T. Bluster than savvy professional gambler Bret Maverick.

As a result of his impolitic gamble, McCain lost the lead and then some. He now trails nationally by four to eight points, depending on the poll -- and by much larger margins in some key swing states.

"It is difficult to find a modern competitive presidential race that has swung so dramatically, so quickly and so sharply this late in the campaign," says Peter Brown, assistant director of the respected Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.

more @ link

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[Trajan]

1. Great post Steven....

I think ALL of the different threads weave nicely into a tidy strait jacket for the McCain/Palin ticket to wear .... Their own sackcloth and ashes ...

K&R