The Candidates
Because when Barry doesn’t have a teleprompter in front of him, his performance is not quite star caliber:
ABC News’ Sunlen Miller today asked Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, how he could “rail against Countrywide Financial Corp as an example of insiders and today’s economy while your VP search is headed by someone who got questionable loans from Countrywide?” (This is an issue we wrote about earlier today.)
“And in addition,” Miller continued, “another person on that same VP search team – Eric Holder — has also been involved in the Marc Rich scandal.”
“Well, look,” Obama said, “the, the, I mean - first of all I am not vetting my VP search committee for their mortgages, so you’re gong to have to direct — ”
“But shouldn’t you?” asked Miller.
“Well, no,” Obama said. “It becomes sort of a, um, I mean, this is a game that can be played - everybody, you know, who is tangentially related to our campaign, I think, is going to have a whole host of relationships — I would have to hire the vetter to vet the vetters. I mean, at some point, you know, we just asked people to do their assignments.
“Jim Johnson has a very discrete task,” Obama continued, “as does Eric Holder, and that is simply to gather up information about potential vice presidential candidates. They are performing that job well, it’s a volunteer, unpaid position. And they are giving me information and I will then exercise judgment in terms of who I want to select as a vice presidential candidate.
“So this – you know, these aren’t folks who are working for me,” Obama said. “They’re not people you know who I have assigned to a job in a future administration and, you know, ultimately my assumption is that, you know, this is a discreet task that they’re going to performing for me over the next two months.”
Ummm…. Yeah… Two of the three people heading up his VP search committee aren’t working for him?
No matter how hard Team McCain pushes, or how much the American People want it, I do not believe that there is any real chance that Team Obama will let their candidate get up on stage with John McCain, two stools, two microphones, and take random questions from everyday folks at open Townhall events. It’s just too risky for such an inexperienced campaigner.
If I were John McCain, I would make as much of this as possible. Something along the lines of having a second, unused stool and microphone on stage with him to remind everyone of what candidate is too afraid to face the most difficult questions.
Seriously, if a candidate doesn’t have the guts to answer questions in an open townhall setting, does he really have the guts to be President?
June 10th, 2008 at 11:51 am
No.
June 10th, 2008 at 12:22 pm
I read that he’s starting his first townhall debate alone this week and having an empty chair on stage just like you said. That is hilarious.
June 10th, 2008 at 12:25 pm
I think the empty chair will work, but you have to be careful. Sometimes these things backfire. They look mean-spirited or something. I think it will work though.
June 10th, 2008 at 12:38 pm
I like the empty chair approach a lot. McCain needs to milk this for all its worth, along with making a point that anyone without the guts to go face to face in a townhall meeting has no business being President of the USA.
June 10th, 2008 at 12:47 pm
I love the empty chair idea…Maybe it would be a moment like Reagan’s “I paid for this microphone!” bit
June 10th, 2008 at 12:51 pm
McCain needs to be real careful of these gimmicks. The gas tax holiday has been called a gimmick, and so has the suggestion Obama go to Iraq, and now an empty chair. If a presidential candidate starts appearing to not take the job seriously he can do enormous damage to his image.
June 10th, 2008 at 12:53 pm
#6, since when has the electorate not been unreceptive to gimmicks:
Lock Box
Tax Axe
Compassionate Conservatism
Hope for Change
Trust-Busting
It’s the Economy, Stupid
Gimmicks rock.
June 10th, 2008 at 12:54 pm
when likely would these be?I would guess be for the conventions ?Would they still have to do the mandatory fall debates from the presidential debate commission?
June 10th, 2008 at 12:57 pm
Definitely something to be cautious about. Can come off as petty and immature. I’d do it once to make a point, then leave it alone. The way to emphasize Obama’s inexperience is not by acting like a twelve-year-old.
June 10th, 2008 at 1:02 pm
No I say do it. Have you looked at the Democrats commenting on the ABC blog? The vast majority tear Obama apart and talk of supporting McCain instead. This guy is a walking gaffe machine.
June 10th, 2008 at 1:05 pm
I read that he’s starting his first townhall debate alone this week and having an empty chair on stage just like you said. That is hilarious.
Perhaps if McCain put on a Kim Jong Il wig, Obama could be tricked into doing a meeting with him.
June 10th, 2008 at 1:13 pm
Sometimes gimmicks work and sometimes they don’t. As I said, it’s a tough call. I wouldn’t call the gas tax holiday a gimmick because it is a policy that could actually have been passed.
June 10th, 2008 at 1:21 pm
I realize the gas tax holiday is only a small tax cut and only for the summer months, but whenever a politician proposes any kind of tax cut, the press presents it as a “gimmick”. That is a psychological trick they play on the public. They said Bush’s tax cuts were a gimmick also. They want to convince the public that supporting tax cuts is not the sophisticated thing to do.
June 10th, 2008 at 1:36 pm
Clarence,
I call it a gimmick because the federal gas tax is 18 cents on a gallon of gas that costs $4 now and probably $5 soon. I happen to be a bargain shopper, cutting coupons, looking at sales in papers. If I see something I like that sells for $4, a store coupon of 20 cents does not do much for me. Now suppose that 20 cents would otherwise go to fix roads. I would say, “keep it” because it does me little good individually but does a lot of good collectively.
June 10th, 2008 at 2:03 pm
“If I were John McCain, I would make as much of this as possible. Something along the lines of having a second, unused stool and microphone on stage with him to remind everyone of what candidate is too afraid to face the most difficult questions.”
Personally, I absolutely love the idea, although I suspect its probably somehow racist.
June 10th, 2008 at 3:13 pm
How can a candidate be elected without open debate? It boggles the mind. There really is no other way to know what the candidates are all about than to subject them to a little extemporaneous speaking. Otherwise, their responses are nothing more than calculated sound bites. I agree McCain should run with this.
I thought there was a relatively large and significant organization which has already offered to sponsor a debate, but I can’t remember what it was. Any one know about that?
June 10th, 2008 at 3:29 pm
Would somebody give me a couple good Democratic blog sites. I need to read some of the garbage.
June 10th, 2008 at 3:34 pm
Bloomberg and ABC offered to sponsor a debate in NYC, but McCain and Obama turned it down because they don’t want one media outlet to control it.
Illinoisguy, Dailykos is the most famous liberal blog I would guess.
June 10th, 2008 at 4:40 pm
Illinoisguy: MyDD.com and Huffington Post are two other leadeing Dem blogs.
June 10th, 2008 at 6:42 pm
This is a little below the level I’d like to see him go for. I mean, Obama could do the same thing with the Lincoln Douglas thing.
June 10th, 2008 at 7:35 pm
I think a Lincoln/Douglas face-off would be fine, also. The point being that he’d have to do some thinking on his feet. No teleprompters, no vetted questions (beside the initial ones). He’d have to answer McCain and vice-versa.
June 11th, 2008 at 9:15 am
If you think this kind of gimmick can’t backfire (and badly) recall this bit of history…
An empty chair lets Obama pick the time and the place, and choose the forum that suits him best. All he has to do is not lose and McCain looks childish.