Well the debate is still going to happen tomorrow here at Ole Miss!

That's why I put the FWIW when I mentioned the "early" polling. It's really too early to tell too much about how this will factor in.

The campaign would have already bought the time for the ads you heard today.

I think he had said he would suspend ads only if his opponent was doing the same anyway. I'm just being snarky :)

ETA: It wouldn't do our radio stations much good financially to have him pull advertising at the last minute either.

"early" polling looking for a response to an event isn't generally considered to be polling that took place in its entirety before the event occurred.

And I'm not saying you haven't seen polls that back your assertion, I was just pointing out that the poll DaemonSeid posted is completely irrelevant to the assertion since the sample period was completed a day before McCain made the announcement.

This all seems convenient. Just more than a month before the tight election, Chicken Little George yells the economy is falling, so that America's Hero can come and rescue it, when the economy is Capt. Hero's achilles hill. While the big bad villain is looking like a fool in Mississippi waiting to debate Capt. Hero.

Smells like a stunt, a good planned stunt.

Oh I agree. I guess I didn't say it well -- there's no way that polling before the event (like what DS posted) could reflect the event. In my earlier post, I was referring to some preliminary polling that I have seen on McCain's decision and how it is viewed. I specifically characterized it as "early" (and threw in the FWIW) because such early polling very well may not accurately reflect how the decision is being viewed at large once people have had some time to think about it.

Make more sense?

I gotcha, I thought you were defending the poll DS had posted as showing that.

I can maybe understand that logistically it's hard to pull TV and radio ads immediately. (Although I know it's been done before for non-political reasons.)

But why, if he has suspended his campaign, are his surrogates and/or campaign staff still appearing on TV, why are they sending out their blast emails to the press today, why is he interviewing with Couric, etc? What has been "suspended" other than the Letterman interview and a couple speeches? Did he not say he was going to stop everything?

http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_p...disbelief.aspx

Don't get me wrong, I think the whole idea of a campaign suspension is idiotic. But if you are going to say you will suspend your campaign, doesn't it make sense to actually do so? Maybe he doesn't have full control over the advertising, but surely he has control over whether his own staff appear on TV and send out campaign emails to reporters today?

Even more idiotic than suspending is claiming to do so falsely. Makes it look more and more like a convenient way to postpone the debate and somehow manage to cancel the VP debate altogether.

"you gotta have a gimmick, if you want to get ahead" has been playing in my head all day...

I think he meant that HE is stopping the campaigning, but made it sound much more heroic like his campaign is stopping all together. Its not, and it won't. Mr. McCain goes to Washington will and is getting a media bump, and may result in a poll bump. I can just see my grandmother telling me how noble he is for doing so.

I don't think it will have an effect either way. If you like McCain, you'll say "how noble", if you don't, you say "Why can't he multi task? Why is he afraid to debate?" If you don't care, you won't care more now.

You're right when it comes to the loyalists on either side. I think it may matter, though, in so far as it affects (assuming it does) the thinking of that dwindling group of people who may actually vote and who are still making up their minds.

Ok...so the poll was a lil' early...and I guarantee it will go down...why??

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/candidate...ncial_meltdown

Even after Congress has agreed to handle the fallout....McCain has still decided to NOT GO to the debate (his mind may change of course....) I still think this is a punk move.

So right now, is he just not going to show up? What will happen then? Obama will be on the stage alone?

Yup...for now McCain has still decided to not go....Obama can probably still use it as press time to answer questions....

No, he said that his position is unchanged, if they can get a bill passed before the debate he will attend. I would bet poll numbers will either remain unchanged or go up. Why? Because the only people you hear outraged about his decision are partisan Democrats. And why are they mad? Because he beat Barack to the punch on trying to seize this issue.

Yes it is a political move, but unless the bailout plan absolutely bombs it was a good move. If they pass a plan and it works, McCain looks good. If they don't pass a plan, blast Obama for not coming to help try to work something out. The only way McCain loses on this is if he helps negotiate a deal that does harm.