John McCain wants to suspend his campaign and delay his first debate with Barack Obama. Why?
He says it’s because he wants to run along to Washington and solve the problem he apparently thinks the rest of the government can’t do without his extraordinarily astute, 24/7, economic insight.
Um, this is the same guy who about a week ago said “The fundamentals of our economy are strong.”
McCain’s clearly trying to buy time. He knows Obama is up in the polls since Wall Street’s walls began caving in at an escalated pace last week. He knows that would be the focus of the debate. And, he knows he wouldn’t come off well.
McCain’s running scared. Plain and simple. Talk about blinking.
So, a few words for Senator Maverick:
If you ever did make it to the Oval Office, Senator, you’d be called upon to do a lot of things at once. You did know that, didn’t you? It didn’t slip your mind, did it?
Aren’t you prepared to manage more than one crisis or area of oversight at a time? What would you do if you were President, a war was raging, a hurricane was blowing, and the US economy was flopping around like a gasping fish on the deck of a rickety boat?
Would you suspend your presidency while you figure out what to do next?
If the country was like Air Force One and a wing was damaged and you had a fire in the hole, what would you do, Senator? Your track record on pulling out of nosedives isn’t exactly stellar.
Would you keep flying while you got a repair crew on the wing and handed off an extinguisher to the stewardess? Or would you bail and pull the parachute toward a soft landing in DC while the rest of US prepare for a crash landing?
Maybe I should do what you’re doing, Senator. Maybe I should just stop spending my time campaigning for new work — like the three hours I spent in meetings today — making zero income — with prospective clients trying to get them to hire me so I can make up for all the clients I’ve lost this year due to the economy.
Maybe if I stop campaigning for work, I can focus on what to do with my 10-year old Camry that has a cracked engine drive belt and also needs a timing belt replacement — I don’t even know what those things do and why a car needs so many belts anyway. I don’t even wear a belt and my watch is broken too, so my timing’s probably more of a mess than my car’s.
All I know is my mechanic, who seems like a nice guy, is telling me it will be a car-tastrophe if I don’t fix these belts and soon. Like I might crash. Like I might be spending a lot longer than one week on the bus line if I don’t come up with the money now.
Only problem, Senator, is I’m broke — just like Wall Street. Maybe because of Wall Street.
But unlike you Senator, the rest of us Americans don’t have the luxury of suspending our day jobs so we can solve our crises — the ones where our kids are literally dying for lack of affordable health care; the ones where we can’t pay our health insurance premiums, and just pray we don’t get sick; the ones where we can’t keep our cars running long enough to look for work; the ones where we can’t pay our mortgage and may not have a place to sleep in a month.
Americans don’t get to suspend our lives, Senator. We’ve got to work our day job, while looking for the next job, while working our night jobs, while solving our crises, while keeping our own private everyday American dreams from imploding.
We all realize the economy is taking a nosedive – we’ve known that apparently a lot longer than you have, Senator. What we need is a president who won’t leave us in the lurch — leaving us in the middle of one of the most important presidential campaigns of our lifetime … and maybe somebody who can help us get our cars running and bills paid and children insured at the same time.
Sheesh, is that too much to ask?