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Obama spokesperson Bill Burton tells us that the McCain campaign is specifically instructing TV stations to start re-airing McCain's ads on Saturday.
The Obama camp would presumably be getting such info from its own media buyers, who are in touch regularly with the TV stations.
Well, that was fast. So this seems to confirm the theory that this whole deal breaking is nothing more than stunt. McCain swoops in tomorrow, the deal gets agreed to, he flies out to "just make" the debates.
The question is, will anyone be dumb enough to buy this?
UPDATE: After finishing dinner, I can elaborate a bit more. Ben Smith has a statement from McCain's campaign:
At today's cabinet meeting, John McCain did not attack any proposal or endorse any plan. John McCain simply urged that for any proposal to enjoy the confidence of the American people, stressing that all sides would have to cooperate and build a bipartisan consensus for a solution that protects taxpayers.
However, the Democrats allowed Senator Obama to run their side of the meeting. That did not work as the meeting quickly devolved into a contentious shouting match that did not seek to craft a bipartisan solution.
My theory is that this whole thing was a ploy to accomplish two things.
- Get Palin out of debating Biden. That part, of course, has failed.
- Pose as a great facilitator and problem solver. After failing badly with his "fundamentals are strong" response, they decided to stage a little dance, wherein Republicans act reluctant and make the whole deal seem impossible to achieve. But tomorrow night, just before all is lost, McCain will be credited with -- as Perino said today -- suggesting the big fake meeting with Bush and Obama, and then brokering the final deal.
The tell, among many, is that he bought more ads for Saturday.