The McCain September Debate Strategy: A Suggestion
Talk The Talk
By Dan McLaughlin Posted in 2008 | Barack Obama | John McCain — Comments (7) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
An idea; a proposal: John McCain should challenge Barack Obama to a week-long set of town-hall debates (say, 4-5 of them) on college campuses when the college kids go back to school in late August/early September. Such debates could be concentrated specifically in the Big Ten schools (Penn State, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio St) and other swing-state universities (U. Missouri) that can produce huge audiences in close proximity to where the candidates will already be campaigning. I'm sure MTV could be lined up to host the debates in as wide-open a format, with no pre-screening of the audience, as possible.
Such a proposal would be a win-win for McCain. College campuses are guaranteed hostile territory for McCain, but he's never feared tough crowds, and it would give him a great chance to break through the groupthink surrounding Obama. And big Midwestern state schools are large and diverse enough that no audience would be without a few College Republicans willing to ask some tough, educated questions to Obama. Obama is likely to try to duck a large number of free-form events, but if he bails, McCain can really go after him for not being willing to wade into the very youth audiences that supposedly form the core of his own support. This won't actually win McCain a ton of young voters, but it might help stem the Obama tide there as well as getting out the general message about Obama being a marketing department creation who's afraid to come out from behind his teleprompter.
And if Obama agrees, all to the good. Especially if a lot of the questioners are snot-nosed pinkos and filthy hippies. McCain's performance at open town hall events over the past year and a half, after all, has done wonders to reassure people nervous about his age and his ability to hold his temper.
As most of us will recall from our college years, owing to their youth and relative insulation from the real world, college students have a different heirarchy of values and priorities than voters who work for a living and have families to raise - in general, there are three things college students respect above all others:
1. Authenticity. John McCain is one of the least canned politicians you are likely to ever see.
2. The willingness and ability to debate just about anything, no matter how obvious or ridiculous. College kids, whether or not they are particularly studious or intellectual, love endless dorm-room bull sessions and hate old people who lack the quickness of mind and mouth (or at least mouth) of the young.
3. People who are interested in the opinions of college students.
A series of campus debates would be a perfect opportunity for McCain to show he can best Obama at all three.
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The McCain September Debate Strategy: A Suggestion 7 Comments (0 topical, 7 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
He should go ahead and schedule them regardless of Obama's participation. If Obama bails, then McCain can go it alone and take all the questions from the audience, while simultaneously making Obama look like he is afraid of his chief source of support.
As head of the Students for John McCain group down here at the University of Georgia, we'd be all for hosting a debate between Senator McCain and Senator Barack Obama.
UGA has the largest chapter of College Republicans in the country and a very vocal and active Young Democrats chapter. This would be great, especially if Barack Obama thinks the South, and Georgia, is in play.
that he screwed up by giving a "town hall" meeting at the time of my first final, he should suck it up, come back to campus and have an open discussion when I'm not going to be made 20 minutes late and can't possibly attend.
Is that if college students are politically interested enough to attend a Presidential debate, then they're probably going to have already decided who to vote for. I think neither Obama nor McCain would either win or lose votes among college students. Of course, if you're saying one of them might win voters based on how they look in the telecast of the debate, I'd agree you have a point. However, I'm not so sure McCain would necessarily do well. One point the Obama campaign hasn't been hitting to the extent I expected is McCain's age- if elected, he'll be the oldest person ever to be so. If Obama starts making a point of McCain's age, which could help play to "Washington Insider" and a few other things, putting both of them next to a bunch of college students could make Obama look young and McCain look old. Besides, I think Obama clearly has the upper hand in ability to whip a crowd into a frenzy, for which college students are going to be prime meat.
Of course I *am* a liberal, so take that as you will.
______________________
Out with the Oak King.
The only think I'm not sure of is whether or not I could survive watching town hall meetings where the questioners included snot nosed, know it all hippies.
Maybe a good brawl would break out between the pinkos and the college Republicans though. That could make it worthwhile.
I meant what I said and I said what I meant. An elephant's faithful 100 percent.
Well, here's something to chew on.
Who is actually disputing McCain's military record? Please give me facts and figures.
As Ann Coulter said, "are we supposed to make all war heroes president?"
Clark's comments were nothing more than what a high school kid of average intelligence you tell you ... being a war hero does not qualify you to be president.
Vote Barr.
This is a brilliant strategy. I'm sure C.R. and the Young Democrats would join in hand-in-hand in promoting and coordinating these events.
And if Obama refuses to show up, let McCain do a townhall and let him go against the Chair of the Political Science department at each campus.
To the dozens of Obama web volunteers closely monitoring Red State and other conservative blogs: Please ask Obama for us if he is a true candidate of change or just a chicken.