McCain releives burning Hemorrhoid

As I predicted after the debate on Wednesday, McCain’s debate performance appears to have stemmed the flow of bad news about the course of his campaign. While it was not exactly a stellar performance, McCain appeared, for once, to understand the state of the country and the plight of, at least, the Joe Plumber’s of the world.

Interesting side note on Joe the Plumber: as expected, the blogs have gone to work finding out who he is. There are a few stories out today claiming that he is: 1) behind on his taxes; 2) not licensed as a plumber, and; 3) is a plant related to none other than Charles Keating (yes the infamous Keating from the Keating Five savings and loan scandal)!

See more here.

Now, I always like to wait a news-cycle or two before I jump on these things, but, it sure is nice when I get another prediction right: that someone would find a way to paint him as a plant. It was just too convenient that Joe Wurzelbacher (his real name), just happened to be preparing to buy a business that fell just barely above Obama’s tax increase threshold. It was just too convenient that the whole thing made it on TV and exploded all over YouTube just days before the debate. And it was awfully convenient that McCain was able to prepare such an effective rhetorical use for good old Joe.

In the mean time, McCain has been trying to tie the media’s treatment of Joe to the Obama campaign – mostly because that is what he always does. It’s just basic reflex for McCain and the GOP to tie Obama to the media (and anything else he can think of) regardless of how baseless the claim may be. The truth on this (whatever that may be) will come to light in the next few days. I’ll weigh in again then.

Now, as for McCain’s polling numbers: he picked up just a couple of points in most polls. The reason is that he managed to pacify conservative-leaning voters that were prepared to jump ship if McCain had yet another disappointing debate performance. In essence, McCain managed to put an ice cube on his burning hemorrhoid. But, he will need a lot more than that to make it go away.

There was a lot of other news today. But, I spent most of the day in meetings and putting together the RSS feeds for the blog. And, since this is the very first blog entry, I will ask you to forgive me my hasty epigram.