Why Didn Obama do the Town Halls with McCain?
On the contrary, Town Halls would be very hard to orchestrate and just aren’t realistic for a Presidential election. Security alone, as well as fitting in all the crowds and news media would be a nightmare for these small towns. McCain wanted to hold them in rural areas that don’t favor Obama, which was a set up to spin things in McCain’s direction. He basically wanted to force Obama into a vulnerable situation, with the specific intention of making him look bad, and since the whole thing was McCain’s idea, you can bet the questions would be tipped in his favor. Obama felt the Town Halls would be a waste of time, and felt it was much better for him to visit these rural areas himself, where he could connect with the residents one-on-one, and he’s done a fine job of it. On that note, McCain is awful at one-on-one. He has difficulty connecting with people when he isn’t behind a podium, and any video on YouTube confirms this. He actually tries to avoid things like this as much as possible.
The offer was disingenuous. The schedule for the debates wouldn’t have allowed time for Sen.Obama for fundraising, while McCain knew he would be getting federal funds. More importantly, it would have meant the McCain campaign would have controlled Obama’s schedule and made it difficult for Obama to campaign where he wanted. The Obama campaign did offer alternatives, but the McCain campaign’s attitude was “take it or leave it”.
