McCain: ‘Stop the debates'

[karynnj]

56. Excellent

I think McCain correctly identified that with all the current Republicans, the spotlight has simply magnified the flaws. It is interesting that he does not realize that he is pretty much saying that the Republican candidates are not attractive once people actually get to see and hear them.

Calling for the debates to end - rather than, as many have done - for the candidates to stop fighting. Not to mention, ending the debates would NOT end the worst fighting, which is the ad war. I have never seen the intensity of negative ads in a primary in my entire life. Clinton and Obama were in a longer, tighter race, but none of their ads attacked the basic character and integrity of the others.

Think of the toughest Democratic ads - even those not from the candidates themselves. Clinton's most negative ad was the 3 am ad - and it questioned who you wanted to answer the call. Even the Gephardt supporters funded ad that most of Dean's opponents condemned was miles away from this. Both of those questioned how prepared the candidate attacked was to be President. The Romney/Gingrich ads have both made cases that the other was corrupt and contain what look to be documentation to back up the charges.

I wonder if McCain sees that ending the debates means that the race would become a war of ads - and the candidate he is supporting is the one spending 5 times as much as his opponent. I would imagine that if Romney moved to try to end the debates after Florida - which might happen as he was supposedly signalling that before he lost in South Carolina, it might backfire because it would give an angry Gingrich a stick to hit him with.

The real fundamental problem the Republicans have is that they are down to four very flawed candidates.