Tax Lady

One more thing:

I don't know if you saw this woman who went on this hilarious anti-tax rant at McCain's town hall meeting in Denver yesterday, but she was really funny As my case in chief that Scarborough is more fun than any of the other political talking heads, I enter as evidence the fact that he used this hilarious clip as his lead-in during his interview with McCain. I haven't seen that clip anywhere else, but it was really funny, and you can see Scarborough playing it for McCain here.

Shootout

Apparently, Obama's threat to "bring a gun" to the presidential campaign has caused McCain to rethink his town hall idea.

Seriously, though, I think that Obama's macho posturing looks particularly hollow in light of the junior senator's refusal to engage McCain in a series of unscripted, unarmed encounters.

New Politics?

I think that McCain's decision to hold a town hall sans Obama in Lower Manhattan's Federal Hall was a wise decision. In challenging Obama to a series of town hall meetings, McCain has put the Messiah of New Politics into something of a strategic box. On the one hand, Obama can accept Big Mac's challenge and repeatedly show the public his sub-par extemporaneous speaking skills. On the other hand, Obama can reject the challenge and reinforce the narrative that he is a weak candidate spoiled rotten by media coddling.

Given the many tactical blunders of the McCain campaign in recent weeks, the town hall strategy is a welcome example of tactical wisdom.