A Weak Argument
Several times this campaign election, Republican presidential candidate John McCain has given a reason for turning negative against Democratic candidate Barack Obama: He wouldn’t join McCain for several town-hall style debates this summer. He gave this reason yet again in response to a question from ABC anchor Charles Gibson.
Well I’m hopeful, very hopeful that we can. I believe that it’s very possible that we can get an agreement so that — in time for me to fly to Mississippi. I understand that there is a lot of attention on this but I also wish Senator Obama had agreed to ten or more town hall meetings that I had asked him to attend with me. Wouldn’t be quite that much urgency if he agreed to do that, instead he refused to do it.
A month and a half ago, this is the reasoning he gave to Washington Post Op-Ed Columnist David Broder for his negative campaigning:
“I’m very sorry about it,” McCain said in a Saturday interview at his Arlington headquarters. “I think we could have avoided at least some of this if we had agreed to do the town hall meetings” together, as he had suggested, during the summer months.
And this month, he gave this answer yet again at the Public Service Forum:
That has to be about the weakest argument I’ve ever seen for why someone has gone negative. Is McCain suggesting that he and Obama would have resorted to character attacks during a town hall meeting? I doubt that.
I’m not saying Obama was right to snub the meetings (because he wasn’t) nor that Obama hasn’t also made character attacks (because he has and I’ve argued for that point), but Obama isn’t trying to hide behind a “I didn’t get my way” argument as the reason for doing what he does.
McCain is essentially using the adult equivalent of the old childhood thinking: “I didn’t get any candy so now I’m going to have a tantrum and tell everyone why mom is so mean to me.”
