It’s a brilliant move by the McCain campaign. Challenge Obama to new style debates across the country and in the process look like the bi-partisan guy and box Obama into a corner. I’ll explain below but first read from The Los Angeles Times below:
With the bruising Democratic contest over, presumptive Republican nominee John McCain said Wednesday that he had proposed a series of town hall meetings with Barack Obama to be held across the country.
The first would be at New York's Federal Hall a week from today.
"I don't think we need any big media-run productions, no process questions from reporters, no spin rooms. Just two Americans running for the highest office in the greatest nation on Earth responding to the concerns of the people whose trust we must earn," McCain said during a town hall meeting here.
"Oh, we're definitely going to be doing some town hall debates," Obama said Wednesday on ABC's "World News." And while the face-offs will not start as soon as McCain suggested, the presumed Democratic nominee said, "I look forward to . . . having more than just the three traditional debates that we've seen in recent presidential contests."
In his letter to the Obama campaign, McCain suggested 10 town hall meetings, one per week, to be held before the Democratic National Convention at the end of August.
They would be 60 to 90 minutes apiece and have blind questions, an independent moderator and a live audience of 200 to 400 voters selected by a polling organization such as Gallup.
The timetable would make the debates the first between major-party candidates to occur before Labor Day weekend -- the traditional start of the fall campaign season.
More here.
Here is why this is a brilliant move by the McCain campaign. Team McCain believes that if Obama engages directly in the issues with McCain then it will end up being an advantage for their campaign. They believe they can paint him as inexperienced and showcase McCain’s depth of knowledge on a range of issues compared to Obama’s knowledge arsenal. If they get Obama “in the weeds” of public policy not only are the chances of Obama making a mistake or flub greater but it takes Obama away from giving his huge lofty speeches. More head to head debates puts McCain in a position to show him as the more seasoned, capable, competent candidate. The Obama campaign will disagree with that notion but the more McCain can interact in town hall formats with an audience, the better he does. It needs to be about less podium and more, “open mic night”
Obama is kind of boxed into a corner here. He really HAS to do these forums because he calls himself a ‘different kind of politician” and if he rejects the McCain offer, then he looks like the same old politician. These types of forums/debates would be trend setting and Obama must play along or he loses some credibility on the authenticity front.