E.J. Dionne: Nowhere for McCain to Go

[marmar]

from Truthdig:



Nowhere for McCain to Go

Posted on Oct 7, 2008
By E.J. Dionne


Tuesday night’s debate, a town-hall discussion dominated by economic questions, made it clear that John McCain’s efforts to change the campaign’s focus to the culture wars of the 1960s is not going to work. Voters want candidates to talk about problems and how to solve them, especially the enormous ones we are confronting now.

And so it was that while McCain took shots at Barack Obama—about his “cronies and his friends” at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, about his tax proposals, about his health-care plan—he could not drag the debate into the more obscure and personal assaults on his Democratic foe that his campaign is peddling. Doing so would not have looked serious or in touch.

A few days ago, McCain lieutenant Greg Strimple told The Washington Post that the Republican side is “looking forward to turning a page on this financial crisis.” The debate and the continuing meltdown in the markets showed that this just isn’t going to happen.

It’s clear why Strimple wishes that page would turn. America’s economic upheavals have transformed the electoral landscape in Obama’s favor. Ohio, which I visited on the eve of the debate, is Ground Zero of the McCain implosion. It’s a state McCain absolutely must win, but recent polls show Obama with a clear lead.

Ohio Democrats sense that a contest they once feared losing has turned decisively in Obama’s direction because the economy is “front and center,” said Rep. Tim Ryan, a Democrat whose district includes Youngstown.

“People are listening more, they’re more open to what (Obama) and his surrogates are saying, and they don’t want four more years,” Ryan said. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20081007_nowhere_for_mccain_to_go/?ln