...I don't think you're getting what this is all about. Phil Gramm is not behind what is going on politically with John McCain's campaign. He's got a frickin' evil genius working with him with impeccable timing. When all is said and done, the debates really aren't as important as the debate that will happen on the Senate floor in the next couple of days. Now, Obama is being shoved in to doing real work instead of campaigning and we'll see what he's really made of.
This isn't about McCain dodging a debate. It's about boxing Obama into a corner.
Try to pay attention.
Come together at The Confluence

The NYT reports that the dems already have a deal. There is no discussion to be had and McCain's trip was a political ploy.

I love this job!

Some of us would argue that you're screwed no matter who you vote for and maybe even worse if you choose Obama. You may lose your so-called progressive party. It's the point we have been trying to make all year. If Obama capitulates to Republican demands to support their bailout plan without a bottom up solution that fixes mortgages for homeowners left holding the bag, then he will have revealed himself to be what we've been saying all along- firmly in the pocket of the Wall Street gilded capitalists who put up the money for his run. You will know this for sure if there is no spirited debate on the subject of the finance bill and it passes to the house without a provision to restructure mortgages for the common people who don't have the money to buy a politician. He will have betrayed the rest of us.

Got it?
Good.
Come together at The Confluence

the candidate best suited for the job. Unfortunately, there are no winners here. In fact, the phrase "the lesser of two evils" doesn't even begin to sum up where we are.

I love how the keep using "maverick" to describe JM. When I was a kid there was a tv show called "Maverick", great western. John McCain is no maverick, he's a loose cannon. Wasn't there a tv show called "Cannon"?.....

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You've got to be freakin kidding me. Obama cancelled debates with Hillary and weekly townhalls with McCain. No one was crying foul or saying Obama wasn't fit to lead then.

Are Obamaphiles that ignorant or do they think everyone else is? I can't wait for "progressives" to start jumping up and down and tell us how pandering to the religious right has always been on the Democratic agenda and how good it is.

I love this job!

McCain just pulled one of the most transparent and useless stunts that he's ever pulled. And, let's not pretend that Obama is clamouring for debate. He's following through on a pre-arranged debate. Obama may lose more from this stunt than McCain simply because San Juan had the sitting president to back him up throwing Obama off balance, but McCain certainly doesn't win anything from this stunt. He just loses less. IMO, this was a terrible move for McCain.

McCain's not going to get patriot points for such a transparent stunt. He's not going to get patriot points for essentially barging recklessly in on existing negotiating in Congress. This isn't being a maverick, this is being unstable. If Obama looks inconsequential and irrelevant in this because of his relative passiveness, McCain looks just as (if not more) inconsequential and irrelevant for flying the f%ck off the handle.