McCain Camp Takes Ayers and Wright off the Table (sort of)...

[Fire_brand]

unless they're "asked about it" (Fox News anyone?). I wonder if their polls are showing that it would not be recieved well.

I don't think I buy it. Ayers was supposed to be used in the debate and wasn't. I think they're trying to keep Obama off balance and guessing.

Or, maybe they know Obama will hit back with AIP. Or maybe they'll wait until the economic news dies down.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1008/14382.html

After days of attempts to persuade voters that Obama’s ties to ‘60s radical Bill Ayers are a crucial character issue, McCain didn’t mention Ayers’ name during the 90 minutes of Tuesday’s forum. His top aides suggested afterward that, going forward, the candidate wouldn’t focus on the former domestic terrorist nor invoke the name of Obama’s controversial pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

Nicolle Wallace, a top McCain adviser, hinted McCain would not bring it up. “If asked about it, of course ,” she said.

McCain’s chief strategist, Steve Schmidt all but said the controversial pastor remained off-limits.

“What Sen. McCain has said is that it’s not an issue he intends to talk about in the race,” said the aide, though he did note that Obama himself had called Wright 'fair game.'

But Schmidt did say without prompting: “You’ve not seen Sen. McCain advertise on ."

When asked, he wouldn’t promise to not air ads on the pastor, but reiterated that “Sen. McCain’s position is clear.”

[maddezmom]

1. what about Palin?

I'm not buying this either.

[Johonny]

8. McCain doesn't control Palin

So expect her to ride that subject into the hate feast. I truly expect McCain to distance himself from Palin more and more. He wants her to go down in flames. He blames her for destroying his campaign.

[regnaD kciN]

9. Apparently, she was still all-Ayers-all-the-time in an event this morning...

...so maybe she didn't get the memo? Or is McCain "suspending" talking about Ayers and Wright just the way he "suspended" his campaign during the bailout vote? :eyes:

[Curtland1015]

10. Perhaps they're trying a good cop/bad cop thing?

Wouldn't be surprised.

[Fire_brand]

11. ...

[Schulzz]

2. So when will their campaign denounce Palin for using them?

Nothing more than news lies...
And I don't trust them either.

[napi21]

3. If they really ARE taking it off the table, their polling obviously

showed that it wasn't working, but making matters worse!

[Arrowhead2k1]

4. Keating Five changed their mind. If they're smart, they'll realize Obama has made it too risky to

go there.

[Karenina]

18. Paul Begela lays it out here in plain talk...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x207033

[Curtland1015]

5. I believe it.

They got a TON of flack for saying they were going to ignore the economy to attack Obama. But they can't now pretend they didn't bring it up. They showed their cards too early, and have once again screwed themselves.

[stillcool]

6. Yeah right....

what are they going to speechify about? There's only so much time you can use up with Drill, baby drill, maverick and POW.

[TwilightGardener]

7. Must have gotten the word from on high that the next foreign/terra incident is ON

for the coming weeks. Who needs flimsy associations if you've got a cooked-up incident in the pipeline? If we make it to Nov. 4th without a scare of some sort, I'll be flabbergasted.

[Shae]

19. I think such an incident would backfire on them.

Obama's response would be Presidential.
McCain would be, well, McCain.

[maddezmom]

12. Dionne: The Town Hall Debate: What Was McCain Up To?

The Town Hall Debate: What Was McCain Up To?
Did McCain have a strategy? John McCain’s approach to Tuesday night’s town hall debate seemed at odds with the direction his campaign has taken over the last several days, a point I discuss in my column this morning.

I’ve been pondering what McCain might have been up to in focusing more on economics and issue attacks than personal assaults on Barack Obama. Of course, personal attacks would seem out of place at a town hall meeting. But it occurred to me that perhaps McCain knows that his lurching style in the campaign lately has hurt him in the polls. So he sought to use last night’s encounter to portray himself as a calmer presence. He was not trying to use one debate to gain back all the ground he has lost. He had the more modest goal of improving his image and therefore set himself up to make gains as the campaign goes forward.

This, perhaps, is a compassionate reading of McCain’s performance. I was struck that some conservative commentators, including Bill Bennett on CNN, and my NPR colleague and Weekly Standard writer Matt Continetti, felt that McCain had not done what he needed to do and therefore effectively lost the debate. Matt noted that Obama looked more Reaganesque than McCain did, which is a high compliment from a conservative. And it’s true, I think, that Obama’s calm and thoughtful demeanor has been reassuring to many undecided voters. That is certainly what the snap post-debate polls showed.

Obama’s whole debate strategy has been directed toward swing voters, as the indispensible Nate Silver has pointed out on his fivethirtyeight.com Web site. You have the sense that McCain’s advisers are divided on the way forward. Some seem to think that McCain can only win by trashing Obama, while others believe the old, less partisan McCain needs to reappear if he’s to pick up moderate voters he has lost to Obama. Or maybe it’s a classic two step strategy: have McCain look more reasonable while all the attacks are done by surrogates like Sarah Palin and through advertising, direct mail and e-mail.

more:http://voices.washingtonpost.com/postpartisan/2008/10/the_town_hall_debate_what_was.html

[soccermomforobama]

13. I honestly think it is because people started talking about

Palin and AIP. The Ayers story has been played out in the media and the public. The more damaging of the two would be Palin and AIP. That has not been vetted in the public. The same with the Wright issue-she has Pastor Muthee and sat through the service with the guy from "Jews for Jesus". Every one of their attacks could easily be turned on them.

[LiberalAndProud]

14. So they're standing down?

I wonder if Obama's campaign has other domain names in reserve that would make McCain.KeatingEconomics.com look rather tame in comparison.

[regnaD kciN]

15. Apparently, they're not...

Despite what might have been leaked to Politico, it appears the Ayers-O-Thon is still in operation as of this morning. :grr:

[AlCzervik]

16. i'll believe it when i no longer hear it.

[slampoet]

17. Ayers is tentative and related to domestic terror, not the cause of the moment. Keating 5 is .......

....economic and directly related to the economy as it stands.