I've been amazed the past couple days by the McCain campaign. Yes, the mountain of sleaze has been ugly, and I'm a little surprised at just how aggressively the campaign is pushing this stuff. Just look at Giuliani's appearance on Morning Joe, and you'll see a campaign that is feverishly pursuing one of the ugliest agendas in modern presidential history. http://www.dailykos.com/...
Obviously, they're doing this because they're losing -- and badly. But that's not how you know the depth of the desperation.
Think of tonight's debate. Obama has been leading for a couple weeks now. Many pundits have already called the election. Seeing how his campaign drifted during the final weeks of the Democratic primaries, you can make the argument that Obama does better coming from behind than sitting in the lead. It's easy to lose your focus and your edge. Obviously, McCain's best shot at changing the trajectory of the election is to destroy Obama in a debate, something that would have been more plausible if Obama felt overly comfortable with the state of the race.
Yet, McCain launches the nastiest stretch of the campaign two days BEFORE the debate. Any chance Obama might come off as less than sharp is gone, as the sheer ugliness of the McCain campaign has everyone in Chicago paying attention. AND, by telegraphing the punch, Obama is set-up to hammer McCain for desperately trying to change the subject. I fully expect a very strong performance from him tonight.
So wouldn't McCain have been better off launching the sleaze AFTER the debate, on Thursday, especially if Obama had a good second debate? To me, the fact they've done it now shows just how much trouble they think they're in. They literally couldn't wait one more day to go nuclear. Surely, the top advisers for the campaign poured over this, knowing that once they descended into this pit of sleaze, there was no going back. Ideally, this isn't the kind of thing you debut just before a debate, where your opponent can stand up before 70 million people and call your candidate out. Any concern one might have for these attacks has to be seriously mitigated by their timing. McCain just handed Obama a bat to wield all night. He's set the ball on the tee for him. Fill in whatever cliche you'd like. Bottom line is, McCain is in big trouble and tonight could essentially bring his campaign to a close.