McCain’s intervention in the financial crisis is his latest showstopper move – and his riskiest. Obama camp calls McCain 'erratic'

As John McCain heads South after a dramatic, thus far failed attempt to lead the effort in Washington to craft a bailout bill, Senator Barack Obama’s campaign is seeking to cast McCain’s high-stakes political gamble as a failure of temperament.



Obama’s national press secretary, Bill Burton, emailed reporters Friday afternoon to tag McCain with the Democrats’ new buzzword: “Erratic.”

“Given his unsteady performance this week, [McCain] desperately needs to win this debate in a big way in order to change the topic and get back to his home turf,” said the memo, which cited McCain’s “erratic, out-of-touch behavior this week, his failure to do anything of substance to move the agreement forward on the bailout, and his commitment to continuing Bush economic policies.”


McCain's high-wire intervention in the financial crisis is his latest show-stopper move—and his riskiest. He may yet snatch a measure of political success from the maneuver, but his unpredictable week has prompted the Democrats to launch their most direct attacks on his character to date.

Another Democratic official cited McCain's "erratic, all-over-the-map response to the economic crisis."

The attempt to cast McCain as "erratic," in contrast to Obama's icy cool, is emerging as a central political theme of the week - even as congressional negotiations remain in doubt. Democrats believe McCain has given voters an uncomfortable glimpse of what a McCain government would look like and reminded them of doubts about his temperament - doubts the Bush campaign used against McCain in 2000. But the attacks on McCain's temperament also carry the risk of appearing to impugn the character of a war hero, and a passion that many voters find attractive.

"McCain is coming perilously close to jeopardizing one of the central brands he has advanced during the campaign — that he has the right temperament to deal with crisis," said Phil Singer, a former adviser to Hillary Clinton, whose staff had prepared strategies for dealing with McCain in anticipation of a Clinton primary win. "Given the gyrations he has exhibited over the last several weeks, he's giving people reasons to think he's anything but steady - he's gambling and has had risky reactions."

"The Obama people would be crazy not to drive the contrast - though they have to careful about how they do it," he said.

McCain's aides hit back hard against Friday’s “erratic” memo, referencing an AP story distributed by Obama’s own campaign that characterized their candidate's previous debate performances as "lifeless, aloof and windy."

McCain spokesman Michael Goldfarb, twisting the knife, added: “In fact, that is a better characterization of Sen. Obama's brief record in the United States Senate. He has never once bucked his own party in order to enact major legislation, he has never once taken real action when he had more to gain from speechifying, and he has never once risked his own political life in the service of a cause greater than winning his next election.”

McCain aides dismiss attacks on the Arizona senator's temperament, saying that he's simply being himself - and that he has confounded his critics by surviving two years of stressful campaigning without public signs of his legendary temper.

McCain's aides dismiss attacks on the Arizona senator's temperament, saying that he's simply being himself - and that he has confounded his critics by surviving two years of stressful campaigning without public signs of his legendary temper.

"Of course, we're aware of the fact that the Obama campaign thinks that's a winning tactic," said a top McCain aide. "They've used language since the start of this campaign indicating they want to use temper as an issue."

And indeed, McCain has long joked about his temper, and used it as a mark of his maverick authenticity.

Republican consultant Scott Reed dismissed the "erratic" talk, saying the GOP's candidate has remained consistent - as a maverick. "McCain isn't doing anything than he hasn't always done - he needed a game changer to get out of the shadow cast by being a Republican in an economic crisis," he said.

But McCain's attempt to shift the argument from the economy to character has, perversely, given Democrats an opening to question his own fitness to lead. Spur-of-the-moment decisions - from his choice of a running mate he hardly knew to his request that the first debate be delayed - reflect an impetuousness he's tried to associate with Obama's youth, his critics say, while undercutting his argument that he's a cool, tested old hand capable of coping with presidential pressure.

Questions about McCain's temperament - some overt, some not - have long been a feature of his political career. He's gotten into profanity-laced shouting matches with fellow senators and other officials, and he jokes that nobody's ever suggested he should get a prize for congeniality.

In March, the Democratic National Committee labeled him "Senator Hothead," and circulated to reporters a quote from Mississippi Republican Sen. Thad Cochran, who said earlier this year that "the thought of [McCain's] being president sends a cold chill down my spine.. He is erratic. He is hotheaded. He loses his temper and he worries me."

That line of attack, however, seemed to subside - until this financial crisis.

Nearly two weeks ago, as the crisis dominated the news, McCain claimed that the fundamentals of the economy were "strong," then quickly corrected himself, saying the economy was "in crisis." This week, he defended his running mate, Sarah Palin's, suggestion that America risks another Great Depression.

After initially opposing the $85 billion bailout of insurance giant AIG, he backtracked and supported it.

Then he called for the firing of SEC Chairman Chris Cox, claiming he had "betrayed the public's trust" - only to later soften those comments and call him a "good man."

In an interview on "60 Minutes" last Sunday, McCain surprised fellow Republicans by saying he would replace Cox with New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat who has investigated Wall Street corruption.

Then came the big, roll-the-dice moves this week.

On Wednesday, McCain announcing he'd "suspend" his campaign to deal with the crisis and called for the postponement of the first presidential debate, scheduled to take plan in Oxford, Miss., Friday night.

The move was ridiculed by Congressional Democrats like Majority Leader Harry Reid, who called it an attempt to rescue not the economy but McCain's failed campaign.

Obama resisted calls to delay the debate.

"I think it is going to be part of the president's job to be able to deal with more than one thing at once," Obama told reporters on Wednesday.

It was part of the self-consciously cool and level tone Obama has maintained all week. The Democrat's campaign thinks voters will absorb the contrast.

Obama is "trying to make it look like a desperate measure - and to do it by using something people already believe about McCain's character," said one Democratic official. Obama is trying, he said to make McCain "look wacky."

But the attempt to draw a contrast with McCain's character may carry risk for the Democrat as well. McCain has been quick to invoke his service in Vietnam, and the ghosts of previous attacks on his stability, in response to any shots. Republicans could also use overt attacks on McCain's temper - something the Democrats have shied away from so far - as a cover to launch their own character-based attacks.

For now, though, McCain aides said they view not-so-subtle references to their candidate being "erratic" as mere bait to anger McCain so that he'll prove the allegation in the debates that start Friday night.

This article tagged under: 2010

Politics