Financial Crisis Spin

Oh, the spin is starting. A right wing friend of mine just sent me an e-mail claiming that although they're trying to spin it otherwise, John McCain actually WAS vital to the process last week, and really DID put country above campaign, even though the story about him essentially screwing up the works has come from both ends of the political spectrum.

This was essentially my response to him, reformatted and with identifying information removed.

* * *

McCain tried too hard to make political hay out of this. Forget for the moment let's assume that everything you say is true (which I doubt, because it's only the McCain camp that's saying so). He keeps trying to tell us he puts country before his campaign. If you're going to do that, Senator, just go ahead and friggin DO it. The way he did it was akin to a really bad actor's death scene in a movie. You know, stumbling about the set with huge melodramatic moves, announcing "Oh! The Pain! I'm dying!" repetitively, in a loud, strong, healthy voice. This impression was made all the more appropriate by the fact that although he announced he was "suspending his campaign", he continued to do interviews and campaign events.(*)

There are two ways it could have been handled and ACTUALLY gotten him some credit. First, he could have just done it and quietly fed a talking point or two to someone loyal but sufficiently distant from the core campaign that the message was "Hey, this guy is risking his campaign to work on the crisis" rather than "Hey, this guy is loudly telling us that he's risking his campaign to work on the crisis".

Or he could have ACTUALLY just done it quietly, not fed a talking point to anyone. Chris Dodd got similar plaudits and a bump in his polling (granted, it was from 1% to about 4%) when he suspended his campaign and went back to Washington to fillibuster the... I think it was the telecom immunity portion of the FISA bill.

But Dodd didn't wave his hands and say "Ooooh, look at me! See what I'm doing! I'm the big hero! I'm showing leadership! I'm doing my G-D job!"

Also, McCain's running back to do his damn job would ring a lot less hollow if he'd voted EVEN ONCE since early April. McCain has missed more votes this year by far than any other Senator, even more than Tim Johnson, who was out for months with a damned brain hemmorage. He's missed almost half again as many as Obama and Clinton, the #3 and #4 offenders.

(Which doesn't look good on Obama or Clinton either, it's the only profession in which you can spend full time interviewing for a new position while still drawing your old salary but not really doing your old job).

But neither Obama nor Clinton has tried to make a big show of how they were going to take a few seconds and actually do their job for the first time in very close to half a year!

So, you want to reject the story that says McCain was responsible for the collapse of the deal on Thursday? Fine.

You want to ignore that twice he was caught not really rushing to help out (first when he said he was rushing right there to Letterman, and then didn't show up in DC for about 20 hours, second when he was supposedly working hard on the bill but was caught out at a four star restaurant with his wife and the Libermans), fine. You want to ignore how he wasn't on the committee that was working on it, so really couldn't even be in the room while they were working on it, and could only express support or lack there of? Fine.

You want to ignore that reportedly he got home and then did most of his work BY PHONE FROM HOME (aka, he DID phone it in)(**)? Fine.

And you want to ignore the political grandstanding move of feinting towards the minority alternate plan that shook up the initial deal before switching back to the main one, all to look like he had some great influence on the process? Fine.

But don't try to tell me that he (or Obama, for that matter, who also skipped a couple of things to make his way back to Washington for the meeting) are somehow heroes because they have been drawing a salary all year on a job they've barely attended.

* * *

(*) I am not one who complains overmuch about the continued running of ads. Although technically it's not a suspended campaign if there are ads still being run, the fact is that it can be reasonably assumed that by "suspending his campaign" he meant "suspending his campaign activities". In other words, there's no real reason why his staff couldn't continue the normal day-to-day activities of the campaign in his absence, he just wasn't going to be available to personally participate... It's that he then proceeded to go on Katie Couric's show followed by a campaign event in the morning before "rushing" back to the capital. Also, the absurdity of the "suspending his campaign" line was brought into stark relief when his Vice Presidential running mate Sarah Palin announced that she might be suspending hers as well rather than stepping up and taking over for McCain, as will be her job if they win and he is otherwise unable to handle his day to day tasks.

(**) As part of his talking points, my friend had suggested that McCain deserved credit for going back to Washington instead of just "phoning it in", which would make sense except that when he got caught sitting at home in Washington instead of going in to the office, the campaign's reaction was "He's doing the job he needs to do, and most of that can be done over the phone." Translation, he literally was phoning it in.

Liam.