Obama Strategy: Painting McCain As "Erratic" On Debate Postponement



(image via michaeltotten)

Temperament, according the Obama team, is a winnable issue. Yesterday afternoon we noted that Senator Barack Obama's Spokesman Robert Gibbs was on The Ed Schultz Show calling Senator McCain's decision to suspend his campaign and postpone the debate as "erratic." "I don't know what they're trying to do," said Gibbs. "Sometimes you read your blackberry and you think you're in an episode of the Twilight Zone." Another day another use of the word "erratic." From Politico's Ben Smith:

"When John McCain announced Wednesday that he was suspending his campaign to tend to the nation’s economic crisis, a top aide said McCain wanted the presidential candidates and members of Congress to 'lock themselves in a room for the next 100 hours' to achieve 'consensus on something.'

"Yet on Thursday afternoon, McCain swept into Washington, walked to his office with pal Joe Lieberman, said little at a contentious White House meeting, did a few TV interviews, sped off to his home and proclaimed, through a spokesperson, that he was 'optimistic' about bringing House Republicans 'on board.'

"McCain’s high-wire intervention in the financial crisis is his latest showstopper move – and his riskiest. He might succeed, but the candidate’s penchant for the dramatic has also raised anew potentially damaging questions of his age, executive abilities and, most of all, his temperament.

"'He has been pretty erratic – there's no other way to describe what we've seen out of this guy in the last week,' an Obama aide said of McCain's conduct during the financial crisis."

That's two separate uses of the word "erratic" in connection with Senator McCain's debate postponement in as many days. If you think that is a mere coincidence, we have a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn ..