McCain campaign chose to have a bad day rather than a disaster
McCain 'suspended his campaign because of 3 bad stories, 5 Obama/Biden rallies and 12 competitive states
Today the McCain campaign was facing 3 disastorous campaign ending stories;
1) Davis and campaign tied to Fanny Mae taking $ 15,000 a month up to just a few days ago. The campaign was so terrified of this story that they started the day with a 2 page attack on the New York Times about it.
2) Palin Troopergate. Under all of the hubbub today the campaign quietly announced that they were going to refuse to answer anymore questions about Troopergate.
3) Palin on the $ 26 million road. This story is having even better legs than the 'bridge to no where'. My Republican neighbor just brought up that even if your really against the bridge why would you build the road? The road proves that she is a liar. Moreover it is the first day of the Stevens trial and all of the stories that he and Alaska are the number one 'earmarkers' in the country and Palin supported them.
TV Commercials - The McCain campaign was looking for any excuse to stop the TV commercials.
Whatever your reason for not having rallies there is no reason not to advertise - unless your running out of money.
Here again Obama campaign has made a major strategic move. They have concentrated their media buys in red states like IA/NV/FL/VA/IN and brought them close. I believe that the McCain campaign was preparing for a 5-6 state campaign where they would be outspent but still felt that they could compete. Now however Obama has made it into 12 competitive states and the McCain campaign does not have the resources to buy media in all of these states. Also spending now is not considered as effective as the last two weeks in October (although early voting is changing that somewhat).
Rather than announce that you can't compete in 12 states better to find a lame issue of principle and keep your money and hope that in the next two weeks the number of states that are actually going to be determinative is reduced to 6-7. Unfortunately some red states like Iowa and New Mexico have moved too far out to be considered worth any investment.
Did McCain have a bad day. Of course but they avoided having an absolute disaster. They avoided wasting money on ad buys they are unsure of, they weren't having any rallies anyway, and nobody is talking about the corruption and conflict of interest stories that would have been major stories on any other day.
ON Edit: I should have added that I don't think that McCain is going to miss the debate, that is a faux move. There will be an agreement or atleast an agreement in principle, McCain takes credit for that and shows up for the debate 'unprepared' and has an excuse for his lousy performance.
