A very clear example of why Obama backed away from his "Anytime, anywhere" challenge and refused to conduct 10 townhall style forums with John McCain.
Obama stinks one-on-one, without his teleprompter.
Yes, it is that simple.
The good news is that Obama, his campaign and his supporters know how badly he did and better news yet, they understand how good McCain did, which is why they are in desperation mode to make excuses of why their golden boy fell flat on his face and why McCain shined.
Rather than have the honesty to admit that McCain is better with this type of format, Obama supporters jumped on the conspiracy theory that somehow John McCain knew the questions ahead of time.
It started with NewsBusters who caught Andrea Mitchell, Obama apologist, claiming that "some" thought McCain had to have cheated.
That gave Obama supporters the perfect opportunity to buy into their delusions and off and running over the cliff they went.
Well, the John McCain campaign has a challenge for Obama and if his supporters are so sure he can do better than his poor performance with Warren, they will encourage him to accept it.
The facts are that Senator McCain was in a motorcade led by the United States Secret Service and held in a green room with no broadcast feed. If the Obama campaign really believes that Senator McCain had some unfair advantage, our offer of weekly town hall forums remains on the table--anyplace, anytime.
There you go. A chance for Obama to strut his stuff.
Deep down the Obama supporters and Obama himself knows that he cannot do any better in that type of forum, because without his teleprompter, Obama is lost as he showed so well with Warren's questions, so it is highly doubtful that Obama supporters want to see their candidate humiliated again.
They will come out with excuses of why they cannot do the townhalls, but in reality, they are scared to do them or Obama would have met his own challenge instead of running scared when John McCain accepted the anywhere, anytime, challenge.
Michael Gerson at the Washington Post nails the exact reason why Obama supporters are so upset where he says:
Finally, McCain's performance at the Warren forum helps change the political psychology going into the conventions. Republicans have spent the past few weeks pleasantly surprised at the closeness of the presidential race. But they have generally chalked this up to Obama's weakness, not McCain's strength. After Saturday night, even Republicans most skeptical of McCain must conclude: "Perhaps we aren't doomed after all."
Of such small hopes are large upsets made.
More at CNN, NYT and a little more from The Politico on Mitchell's comments and a letter the McCain campaign sent to NBC because of them.
Update added : Warren says both candidates knew the first question beforehand, reported by God-o-Meter.
Some Obama supporters are claiming that McCain saw the questions before the forum began, giving him a leg up on Obama.
They're dead wrong. That's just sour grapes. They both did fantastically well. The only question he knew, I gave them the first question and I was changing the questions within an hour [before the forum began.] I talked to both of them a week before the debate and told them all the themes....
Another conspiracy theory bites the dust.
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