It was orchestrated, Lancey, and the real question (my tin foil hat, please) is whether MCCAIN was in on it.
His campaign response throughout, including this, was so inept as to be carefully planned. I don’t think anyone let Palin in on the secret, though.
The “must happen by Monday” has reached out to weeks later, and STILL the banks are having trouble deciding where to send that money, and Congress is wondering if they shouldn’t siphon some off for the car companies.
700 BILLION ABSOLUTELY CRITICAL DOLLARS THAT HAD TO BE IN THEIR HANDS BY MONDAY!
And they still don’t know what to do with it?????
I did consider that possibility but thought it too much of a stretch, even for McCain.
I am rethinking that position.
The reason I originally dismissed the idea that McCain was "in on it" was because if there was an obvious and natural direction for the candidates to go, it was McCain and the Republicans talking about national security, and the rats talking about handing out "free stuff for (nearly) everybody!" (ie., the economy).
For God-only-knows-what-reason, McCain largely opted to battle 0bama on his own turf while "national security" as an issue seemed to drop off the face of the earth. If McCain had shown just one television ad showing US fighting men on the battlefield, and ending with a picture of the goofy-smiling 0bama with the bannered question, "Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the United States, Barack Hussein Obama??", it would have flipped up to 5% of the vote, I am positive.
Meanwhile, 0bama stuck to his message of giving "95% of the taxpayers" free stuff confiscated from the other 5% (their neighbors). McCain never had an answer for that and was never able to find a catchy mantra; not even a silly, meaningless one like "change". (He did try out some boring, insincere thing at the end of the GOP convention, but I forget what it was. "Stand with me"?)
Heck, not only was McCain thoroughly impotent at explaining why 0bama was a brazen liar on his tax plan, he never even answered 0bama's ridiculously out-of-context claim that he, McCain, would RAISE taxes by taxing health-care benefits. McCain somehow managed to lose even the tax issue!! That is unforgivable.
Again, one television ad showing clips of Clinton's 1992 campaign would have flipped many gullible voters: "Bill Clinton was another Democrat Presidential candidate who promised America a middle clas tax cut. Americans believed Bill Clinton, but they never got the middle class tax cut he promised. In fact, just one year after his promise of a middle class tax cut, Clinton signed the largest Democrat tax INCREASE in history." (Cut to a clip of the House cheering passage of the tax hike.)
Bottom line: McCain's campaign was absolutely atrocious. It was so bad, in fact, I do have to reconsider whether McCain actually could have been in on the "global economic meltdown" gambit, thinking it could help him somehow. Could the McCain campaign have possibly been that stupid? Yep, given all the evidence, absolutely.
FRegards,
LH
All you had to do is look at the timing... Right after the GOP convention, when McCain was ahead, and right before the election... That’s ALL you need to know