Obama team sets debate expectations - for McCain

Always entertaining to watch the campaigns set their opponents up for supreme failure before these debates. It happened in the primaries, now it’s time for the real deal.

Tonight’s showdown in Oxford features a strange mix of being centered on foreign policy - a McCain strength - but with voter attention and more than a few questions from the moderator on the economy in a medium that better fits Obama. Realistically, the entire night is probably between toss-up and lean-Obama. Does anyone think he won’t be able to put McCain on the defensive about the economy and then wish his way through the foreign policy questions?

The Obama campaign’s pre-debate spin is decidedly different in their early take on the festivities. They see McCain as having an unparalleled advantage thanks to the overarching foreign policy topic and McCain’s “quarter century of experience” in Washington.

Bottom line: the Obama team sets “sky high expectations” for McCain tonight in the following “strategy memo.”

Already declaring victory before the debate has even started, in ads running on the Wall Street Journal website, John McCain meets Barack Obama tonight to debate foreign policy - McCain’s professed area of expertise. 

The centerpiece of John McCain’s campaign has been his more than a quarter century of experience in Washington learning about and debating foreign policy.   If he slips up, makes a mistake, or fails to deliver a game-changing performance, it will be a serious blow to his campaign.   Given his unsteady performance this week, he desperately needs to win this debate in a big way in order to change the topic and get back to his home turf.

For eight years, McCain has marched in lockstep with every single major Bush decision, while Barack Obama opposed the war in Iraq from the beginning and has called for a focus on Afghanistan and al Qaeda.  Americans want to know whether John McCain will stop spending $10 billion in Iraq while the Iraqi government sits on a $79surplus and our economy is in turmoil.  Will he continue a policy that has taken our eye off al Qaeda and Afghanistan, and let Iran make progress in building a nuclear weapon?  Will he continue the cowboy diplomacy and empty bluster that has shredded our alliances and set back our standing in the world?  The fact is, John McCain will continue more of these same failed foreign policies. Barack Obama will lead us in a new direction.

On the economy, McCain’s words and actions over the course of the past week have illuminated his lack of expertise.  He admitted he does not understand the economy — his 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, demonstrate it.  But there are some questions we might see answered tonight after McCain’s misadventure to Washington and the phony ’suspension’ of his campaign.  For example, will McCain finally say where he stands on the unworkable and counterproductive House Republican plan?  Will he be willing to buck his own party? 

According to the pundits, McCain’s debating skills are unparalleled, as you can see below, and the expectations for him tonight are sky-high.

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