On October 7, the morning of last week’s presidential debate, Chuck Todd told the Morning Joe crew that in his opinion, John McCain had to deliver a game-changing message at the debate. They had the following exchange discussing just what the nature of that message should be:
JS: But it certainly ain’t William Ayers, is it? I mean, around the table here, we all think that if he brings up William Ayers, he’s gonna get punished by the voters. It ain’t William Ayers, is it?
CT: No, I don’t think it is, Joe. I think it’s a BIG issue, economic issue. I think it’s something that makes voters stand up and say, "Oh, that’s right. We’ve got another crisis coming. We just did one bailout; there are probably three or four more federal government bailouts. Who do we want in charge of this? Do we want Barack Obama in charge, or do we want John McCain in charge?"
And I think they’re trying to make that case a little bit, saying, "Look, you don’t know if you want the Obama – the liberal way of doing it, you want the conservative way of doing it." But I think McCain needs to explain it better because right now, it sounds – you know, sounds too much like how Bush might do it -- do something. So he’s got to -- you know, he’s got to walk this line that both explains a different economic philosophy from Obama but that also sounds different from Bush.
Look, it’s not an easy position, but I think it’s more winnable than if he goes down the Bill Ayers route, which I think – we think McCain and Palin are taking a drubbing in our poll on the debates right now, losing two to one? If he goes the Bill Ayers route, voters will say he’s losing the debates three to one. His negatives will rise even more. You know, McCain’s negatives have gone up substantially in the last -- since our last poll.
[at 2:55, emphasis added]
Friday's TPM Election Central report about Fox News polling with regard to favorability basically recapitulates what Todd said and fleshes out the cost/benefit ratio of an Ayers attack to the McCain campaign:
There has been some discussion of Barack Obama's relationship with the former radical activist William Ayers. Because Ayers is linked to plots to bomb the Pentagon and the U.S. Capitol in the 1970s, and because Ayres recently said he wished he had done more, some people say Obama's association with Ayers calls into question his judgment. Does Obama's connection with Ayers make you less likely to vote for him for president or does it not really make a difference to your vote?
Less Likely 32%
No Difference 61%
Strikingly, the numbers are worse for McCain among independents: Only 29% say the Ayers association makes them less likely to vote for Obama, and more than twice as many -- 64% -- say it makes no difference. The data suggests that the vast majority of the respondents saying it makes them less likely to vote for Obama are Republicans, who probably wouldn't have supported him anyway.
Meanwhile, the poll suggests that McCain's attacks could be blowing back on him: A majority -- 51% -- say he's running a negative campaign, as compared to only 21% who say that about Obama.
Our handy TPM Election Central calculator tells us that the number of voters think McCain is running a negative campaign is nearly double that of the number who care about McCain's primary attack line right now. Go figure.
So if we’re to believe the polling and the pundits, if John McCain brings up Ayers at the debate it will result in a serious self-inflicted wound to his campaign. He neatly avoided it last week, although at the expense of leaving his base dismayed and disappointed.
So what did the Obama campaign do? Classic rope-a-dope. Essentially, they issued a bunch of schoolyard taunts. "Hey, John, you scared? Whatcha scared of, John? Be a man, John." And it seems to have worked beautifully.
From TPM Election Central this morning:
The key news in the [McCain] interview -- which was flagged by Mark Halperin and which you can listen to here -- is that McCain is already laying the groundwork to blame Obama for his apparent decision to confront Obama over Ayers tomorrow.
Asked by his radio host if he'll bring up the former Weatherman, McCain says:
"Oh, yeah. Y'know, I was astonished to hear him say that he was surprised for me to have the guts to do that, because the fact is that the question didn't come up in that fashion. So, y'know, and I think he's probably ensured that it will come up this time. And, look Mark, it's not that I give a damn about some old washed-up terrorist..."
It's Obama who has "probably ensured" that McCain will bring up Ayers. What's so lovely about this is that McCain is now portraying his apparent decision to hit on the Ayers association as driven by a need to defend his honor.
I believe the word for it is "checkmate." However it plays out tomorrow night, it’s a win-win for Obama and a lose-lose for McCain. If McCain brings up Ayers, Obama gets deliver an undoubtedly masterful response in front of ~60 million people, and McCain’s negatives go ever higher. And if McCain fails to mention Ayers tomorrow night, Obama shrugs off the allegations as unimportant, and McCain’s base gets even more enraged with him. McCain can’t win, and Obama can’t lose.
The real question that all of this raises, though, is if it’s this easy to rope-a-dope John McCain by saying a couple of snarky things to Charlie Gibson that challenge his manhood, just imagine how simple it would be to manipulate him on the national security scene, in a real life-and-death situation. Do you have any reason at all to think that Putin or Ahmadinejad or Zardari won’t figure out exactly how to put John McCain in a box of his own making within about five minutes’ time?
And with that, my friends, John McCain will have proven that electing him is just too risky; we can’t trust his judgment. Oops.