Not doing the townhall debates made Obama look weak.
How can he stand up to Putin if he can't even deal with McCain?
Obama was up by 10 points and had nothing to gain.
The man who is 10 or 20 points behind in polls is ALWAYS asking for debates, and the leader always wants to do as few as possible. Also, in the pre-Palin days, Mccain couldn't get 1000 folks to show up at a townhall. With Obama on the ticket, there'd be 10,000 people EASILY trying to get in to view it.
When King Kamali uses his MuscleMag column to challenge Dennis WOlf, does Wolf respond? Of course not. He's a top 6 world athlete, and King can't get top 5 at a scrub show. But king will try. Same way mccain was too.