But wait, It worked with Gustav

If you are John McCain you need to be careful.

Your campaign keeps accusing your opponent of acting too much like the president- while not actually being the president. And when confronted with a natural disaster coinciding with your political party's convention you talked your party leadership into delaying and rearranging much of the festivities so that you would not be seen celebrating while the south drowns.

Never mind that there is little you or anyone else at Xcel Energy center could actually do about the hurricane anyway. They demonstrated that convincingly during Katrina three years ago and reminded us of that fact when ke struck outside the range of political cameras.

Now, after demonstrating a complete lack of knowlege on these matters, John McCain is going to mount a white horse and ride into Washington and save us from ourselves.

If he really cared about a non-political answer where was such a move last week? If this wasn't solely about political theatre why does he make such a proposal on national television rather than call the Barack Obama Camp himself?

It is now being widely reported that such a move is exactly what Barack Obama did in calling the McCain Camp this morning (8:30 AM Eastern) with a proposal for a joint statement from the candidates.

When did the Maverick turn nto such a show horse?

The scary pattern developing on the McCain side of things is an inability to multi-task and to set priorities. With regard to Hanna, and now this financial mess- that they have known about for a long time- it is not as if the Bush proposal hasn't been in the works for a long time (it is just that congress is getting very little time process it)- McCain keeps wanting to stop the game clock and take a time-out so that he can get it right.

His campaign surrogates are now spinning this as if he is the one who is reaching out to Obama.
Clever move. But the public needs to keep its eye on the ball. McCain made his name as an advocate for the same kind of deregulation that caused this mess. He consistantly votes in favor of business over the worker (Wall Street over Main Street).

The Gustav gambit worked (modestly). The Sarah Palin show added a well needed shiny object to keep people distracted frm real issues - so much so that Hurricane Ike and a lack-luster response from Government officials went almost unnoticed and the markets made their slide allowing the Bush administration to put forth their 'bail-out' plan for a rushed response from congress.

If the gamble works and McCain creates a new drama to distract people from the issues -including McCain's record on financial issues- it would be unfortunate.