Third time's a charm?

Go big, or go home: that’s got to be Republican presidential nominee John McCain’s slogan tonight. In the wake of a New York Times/CBS News poll indicating a 14-point (!) advantage for Democratic nominee Barack Obama nationally, McCain has a steep hill to climb at the third, and final, presidential debate at Hofstra University in New York.

McCain must prove not only that he is more qualified than Obama for the presidency, but that Obama is a dangerous choice. This is a tall order, especially for McCain who (a) doesn’t like to confront his opponents aggressively in person, and (b) must make these points solely on economic issues (not a strong Republican talking-point right now).

In his search for a game-changing moment, McCain would be hard-pressed to find a more difficult environment in which to shine.
-The Dow Jones dropped 733 points today.
-VP Dick Cheney, 67, suffered heart irregularities today.
-Locally, a lot of swing voter eyes in eastern Pennsylvania might be glued to the NLCS Game 5 (Go Phillies!) competing in the same time period. According to the McCain campaign, Pennsylvania remains “critical” to winning the White House, where he currently trails by nearly 10 percent in the polls.

Here’s some initial spin from the Obama and McCain campaigns:

“Senator Obama is going to use the debate to discuss his plan for the economy. That’s what he’s been doing this entire campaign. And on Monday, he built on his proposals in a new Rescue Plan for the Middle Class. That’s the kind of steady leadership and real change Americans are looking for – not John McCain’s erratic handling of the crisis, his constant character attacks, and the same Bush policies that have failed us for eight years,” said Bill Burton, the Obama-Biden national press secretary, in an e-mail this morning.

“Obama’s national lead is shrinking, and Sen. McCain has laid out a bold, new [economic] plan aimed at stabilizing the root cause of the financial crisis,” said Peter Feldman, the PA communications director, in an interview this afternoon. “No matter how Barack Obama performs tonight, he’ll be given a pass by the media and declared the winner. John McCain will show the American people that there is little more to [Obama's] plan that just words.”

I’ll be blogging the debate from the College Republican’s watch-party @ 41st and Locust.
Stay tuned.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 15th, 2008 at 8:43 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.