Detroit Automakers A Relic Of The Past
Celebrity Fires Consume the Media
To Battle Stations
Failure To Blow Election Stuns Democratic Party Faithful Mourn End To Losing Tradition
Looking Past Palin
The Earth’s Not Flat and It’s Not Warming
A Force For Good -- But Not At State
Palin Saboteurs Want to Kill Her Career Now
As GM Goes, So Goes The GOP
A Kinder Gentler DC
Quantum Of Nonsense
Obama's School Choice
And They're Off
They Shilled For Obama
The Tricky Obamas-Clintons Relationship
Leaving Home
From Victim To Victor In Black America
They Gave All, For . . . This?
'No' To Obama'S Experimental Government
The Same Old Change
New Books
Palin's Next Career Move
Leaders Duck And Hide While Wall Street Steals From Us
Can Obama Pull Off A Historic Presidential Double Play?
A Bridge We Need
Trusting Paulson
The Secret Of Happiness
Hope And Vision
'Keynsian Moment' Needed To Fight 'Great Recession'
A Lemon Of A Bailout
For Obama, A Game Of High-Stakes Fiscal Poker
No One Should Be Railin' Or Bailin' On Palin
Believing Your Own ... Um, Propaganda
Post-Election Potpourri
The Insane Rage Of The Same-Sex Marriage Mob
Sarah Palin Is Not The Future Of The GOP
Walking On Sunshine
Hillary Appointment: The Audacity Of Broken Promises
GOP Needs Night Of The Long Knives
Obama's Washington
The New World Financial Order
A Bomb Thrower Vs. Obama Bashers
Let'S Hope Gop Will Give Us SomeThing To Vote For Rather Than Against
Is Gay The New Black?
DiscriminaTion Still Lives
The Truth about Government
The Republican Party is a Grass-Roots Party
Welcome To The Wired White House
Note To Gop: Get Serious About Women Candidates
Revenge Of The Boxes
Cold War Hawks Nesting With Obama
Let Them Eat Spam
Choices Have Consequences -- Unless You're Joe Lieberman
Dean: Dems 'Big Tent' Party Now
Don't Bail Out the Big 3 -- Interview With Dan Ikenson
Business Unusual
Blind Defense of Koran Abrogates Reality
Some Of My Best Friends Are…
In Detroit, Failure's a Done Deal
Evil Concealed By Money
The Clinton Gamble



Mccain's Debate Gambit
Jules Witcover 6/18/2008
Digg This Story!
Del.icio.us Reddit StumbleUpon Yahoo! MyWeb Technorati Google Bookmarks Furl Ma.gnolia Newsvine Bloglines Rojo Facebook

WASHINGTON -- Ever since Sen. John McCain upset then-Gov. George W. Bush in the 2000 New Hampshire primary by using the town-meeting format to woo the voters, it has become a staple of his campaigning.

His direct manner of responding to audiences with "straight talk" worked then and again this year in the same primary, when he resurrected his slumping campaign by beating Mitt Romney in his New England backyard. By exchanging views in this folksy manner with "my friends," McCain traveled a surprisingly easy path toward the Republican nomination.

His appearances, however, were no match on the glitz meter compared to Sen. Barack Obama's soaring rhetoric and dazzling charisma. Obama strategists looked forward to getting their man on the same stage with McCain in the fall debates that have become a presidential campaign institution.

But McCain and his strategists have come up with another, obviously self-serving idea. They are proposing a series of 10 joint town meetings between now and the parties' national conventions, with an initial call for such a town meeting over the July 4 weekend.

The Obama campaign has countered by suggesting a second session in August,
an "in-depth debate on foreign policy" that presumably would have the standard head-to-head format with a moderator.

Chances seem good for such an arrangement. Less likely is that Obama will be willing to engage in 10 of the town meetings that the McCain folks believe will benefit their man. Obama showed in the latter stages of his primary battle with Sen. Hillary Clinton that once his star was on the rise, his strategists felt less was better than more as far as his interests were concerned.

This year, an epidemic of candidate debates in both parties has flourished, involving new vehicles for public participation via cable television and various Internet gimmicks. While the entertainment quotient may have gone up, the substance has sometimes suffered, in trivialization of the exchanges.

During the early primary debates in both parties, the large fields of contenders often impaired lengthy confrontations, especially between the leading candidates, as the less prominent participants scrambled for air time. The occasional spectacle of a cartoon character posing a question via You Tube may have drawn laughter, but didn't do much to boost the intellectual content.

Add Feed to ZapTXT Add Feed to Bloglines Add Feed to Technorati Add Feed to LibWorm! Add Feed to My Yahoo! Add Feed to Google Add Feed to Newsgator Add Feed to Rojo Add Feed to Windows Live Add Feed to My MSN
Romney Drops Out Color
By Daryl Cagle - MSNBC.com * Posted 2/7/2008 12:00:00 AM
Post to MySpace!
Comment
Email
Romney Drops Out Color
© Copyright 2008  Daryl Cagle - All Rights Reserved.
Make A Comment
We appreciate your feedback. Post a comment using the form below.
Your Name (required)
Your Comments
Type the characters you see in the image:

 





© Cagle Cartoons, Inc., All Rights Reserved; Artwork and Columns © each respective artist and writer.