Republican presidential candidate John McCain not only has a temper problem, he may have lost his marbles. We all know politics is sometimes filled with stunts from both parties. But I’ve never heard of a presidential candidate suspending his campaign for no real reason. I can’t recall a candidate doing so even for personal or family-related reasons.
That’s exactly what McCain did. He claimed it was because of the economic crisis, but he didn’t have any real involvement in negotiating the bailout. All he did was disrupt talks. He spent the bulk of his time in
And then he got involved with these shortsighted and ideologically-stubborn, right-wing House Republicans who helped sink the bill. So he suspends his campaign to rush back to Washington-his supporters arguing that he was going to use his leadership to push the bill through-and the dang thing fails anyway. No, it wasn’t his fault. But it was another boneheaded campaign gimmick from a boneheaded McCain. His campaign and supporters were so dumb, they were trying to claim credit before the bill passed.
Political commentator Chris Matthews coined it perfectly. McCain pulled a “razzle-dazzle.” He did it when he tried to have the debates cancelled. The Republican Party pulls a razzle-dazzle every presidential campaign-some kind of stunt, a gimmick, a trick, a distraction-anything to turn an election upside down whenever the voters start paying too much attention to the issues.
Every time McCain starts dropping in the polls, he pulls a razzle-dazzle. Choosing Sarah Palin was a razzle-dazzle, and she implodes every time she tries to talk about the issues. McCain a maverick? That’s not being a maverick … or a leader. That’s being erratic, a troublemaker and creating chaos. I think the country has had enough of that from the Republicans.
McCain has turned the election into the Jerry Springer Show, MTV’s Jackass, Wile E. Coyote trying to put together another fool-hearted contraption from the Acme Company. He hasn’t acted like a cool and cautious leader. He’s like the robot from Lost in Space malfunctioning, spinning and waving its arms yelling, “Danger, Will Robinson, Danger.”
We know there’s spin in politics. But McCain’s campaign and his surrogates at FOX News and talk radio sound like ignorant and stupid fools. Conservative commentator Fred Barnes tried to set up the “McCain-to-the-rescue” razzle-dazzle move, saying that with talks stalled-they weren’t-McCain might be the only one who can save the bailout bill. That’s just really, really dumb, as well as a lie.
McCain, two weeks ago, said the economy was not in bad shape, the whole “fundamentals are strong” snafu. He has confessed the economy is not his strong suit. I believe him. So he decides to pull a stunt concerning the bailout to show how good he is on the economy.
Now here’s some more razzle-dazzle. He tried to blame the failed vote on Obama and also tried to pin the Wall Street mess on him.
OK, let’s try to keep score on McCain’s nitwittedness-if I can pull my own razzle-dazzle and just make up a word: The fundamentals of the economy are strong, but not economic fundamentals, he meant workers. The financial crisis that really didn’t exist was Obama’s fault. To fix it, he suspended his campaign to work on the bailout bill, even though he’s not a member of the Senate Finance Committee and never sat in on any of the negotiations. He claims credit for the bill’s passage before it actually passes. When it fails, he said it’s all Obama’s fault.
Voters shouldn’t simply be cautious about voting for McCain-they should be outright scared to death. As Chris Matthews asked, “How would you like eight years of razzle-dazzle?”
