Prediction: McCain is planning on making a historic and gracious concession speech

[grantcart]

McCain had his shot and he knows that he isn't going to make it. If your planning on becoming President you start conducting yourself in a Presidential manner. You don't go on SNL and make ridicule your running mate and disparage your own campaign. If however you know that history has taken a different direction then you try and pin your reputation on the best showing possible and a classy exit.

Senator McCain's announced plans for a quiet announcement out of the range of his supporters indicates that he has something he wants to say and that he doesn't want a partisan crowd to interrupt him. Simply based on the curious announcement below I believe that McCain intends to make a historic concession speech and also a vigorous appeal to support President-Elect Obama.

While his use of 'guilt by association' and the highly inaccurate 'socialist' charge are not examples of a campaign particularly concerned about how ethical or inspirational it is perceived, the losing candidate to the first African American President will indeed have a window of opportunity to make a 'Neal Armstrong landing on the moon' type of endorsement that would, almost certainly be his political epitath, the lead in the obituaries.

If your thinking that you have something very specific to say and its going to be how you are going to be remembered in history then it would make sense that you would want to say it in a calmer atmosphere than a hotel lobby where someone could yell out 'kill him' or 'terrorist'.

I am guessing that it will be something along the lines of a public call to Senator Obama with McCain saying something to the effect "Let me be the first to call you President-Elect". Right now Senator McCain's classiest move is two things, not using the name Rev. Wright a single time in the campaign and taking the microphone from the confused lady and saying, "No, no he's a fine Christian gentleman." He knows that he is not going to be the leader of the Republican Party on Wednesday. Tuesday night will be his last big stage to make a gracious and enthusiastic endorsement of the new President Elect. I hope that he will take that opportunity to make it the third and most classy move of his campaign.


(It will also be an opportunity for him to rise above and turn his back on a party that shows him no love and will trash him with vigor almost immediately after the dust of the election is over.)

McCain will depart from election-night tradition

http://www.blueridgenow.com/article/20081023/NEWS/810230277


NEW YORK (AP) -- Republican John McCain is not going to make his election night remarks in the traditional style — at a podium standing in front of a sea of campaign workers jammed into a hotel ballroom.

Oh, the throng of supporters will hold the usual election night party at the Biltmore Hotel in Phoenix on the evening of Nov. 4.

But the Republican presidential nominee plans to address another group of supporters and a small group of reporters on the hotel lawn; his remarks will be simultaneously piped electronically to the party inside and other reporters in a media filing center, aides said.

Aides said Thursday that the arrangement was the result of space limitations and that McCain might drop by the election watch party at some other point.

Only a small press "pool" — mostly those who have traveled regularly with the candidate on his campaign plane, plus a few local Arizona reporters and other guests — will be physically present when McCain speaks.

Thomas Patterson, a government professor at Harvard's Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy, called the arrangement "unusual" but said the campaign may simply be bowing to the reality that the candidate's remarks are geared toward the televised audience rather than those in the hall.

"Addressing your supporters election night is one of those traditions in politics, like where you choose to launch your campaign," Patterson said. "Why wouldn't you want the energy of the crowd? And if you're going to lose, you almost need it even more."

My comment - yes why indeed.

[MichiganVote]

1. He won't call Obama. He'll have some hack call for him to concede.

[LiberalFighter]

8. That hack will be Palin

[MichiganVote]

16. You betcha' :)

[blue_onyx]

9. I agree...I don't see him calling Obama

[MichiganVote]

17. 'Hey' to another Michigan voter! Glad this thing is going to be over anyway.

[babylonsister]

2. I don't think, at this point, he could attain 'classy'. nt

[icnorth]

7. Classy and McCain in the same sentence became

a contradiction of terms when he invoked the Rove doctrine and added it to his campaign portfolio.

[BlooInBloo]

3. BWAHAHA!!! No, seriously.

[PetrusMonsFormicarum]

4. One can hope.

There's so much about the guy that I used to really like, and this campaign has been saddening more for the decay of John McCain than for any of the anticipated negative aspects. I for one would like to see a conciliatory McCain who might carry in his comments a washcloth to remove the smears of the past months, and bandages to tie us back together.

[tpi10d]

5. Classy by contemporary republican standards at least.

Heck he may shoot for the moon as you suggest. This may be his last senate term, how he fits into the increasingly disfunctional GOP is anybody's guess. His future in politics may be short and he may well chose to go out with grace.

[Orangepeel]

6. The McCain campaign denied that article the day it came out. Said the reporter misunderstood

:shrug:

I hope you are right, but I doubt it. I think he's bracing for his inevitable loss, but he is still calling Obama a socialist. He's not going out gracefully.

[ROh70]

10. I agree. McCain was very gracious to Obama at that celebrity roast.

I truly believe he'll say something similar, and actually acknowledge the historic nature of Obama's campaign as the first African American President.

[ncgrits]

11. I would like to think that you are right about McCain making an important statement.

But, given the way the campaign has been run, doing something classy and well-considered just doesn't seem like it would be in the cards. Are they even capable of conceiving of such a thing? At this point I don't think they have it in them. . . .

Hope I'm wrong.

[LisaLynne]

12. I hope you're right, but in my cynicism ...

I see different events being more likely. Either he knows that he will not be able to contain his anger if (when) he loses and doesn't think he'd be able to face a huge room of people and keep his composure ... or he's afraid of his own people and what they might do when he is forced to concede.

I hope you're right. But, even if he did take the high road, I am not going to buy it. He has gone too far off the path in his pursuit of the White House. He's shown himself to be too willing to ignore what might be his own opinions and what he might know is right in order to win and pander, so I won't see a "classy" concession as anything but another cynical ploy.

[busybl]

13. hehas a way to go just to get to the level of gutter

class not possible

[Clio the Leo]

14. Gracious maybe but historic? No one will remember it by Thursday, NT

[DainBramaged]

15. After what he allowed, there is no gracious from this old hack

[TlalocW]

18. No matter what he does - McCain is and always has been a douchebag

If he does what you say, it will just be a repeat of past behavior. When he got caught with his hand in the cookie jar with Keating, he was intelligent enough to re-invent himself as a maverick fighting government waste and cronyism by introducing a few bills that really didn't have much teeth. He's kept his temper for the most part hidden and schmoozed with the press. He tried to run on that image in 2000 and lost so he couldn't abandon his "principals" fast enough to do what he thought was needed to win this time around. Turns out that it's not going to work for him so if he does make a grand concession to Obama, it will be only to rehabilitate his image with the press.

TlalocW

[niceypoo]

19. I think they will try to tie up the election with lawsuits

Given the way he has ran his campaign, igniting hatred amongst his supporters more venemous than what they did to Bill Clinton, I can't see him conceding. When he let Rove run his campaign he sold his soul.

The Obama administration will go after the Bush criminals

"If there has been a basis upon which you can pursue someone for a criminal violation, they will be pursued," Biden said during a campaign event in Deerfield Beach, Florida, according to ABC. "ot out of vengeance, not out of retribution," he added, "out of the need to preserve the notion that no one, no attorney general, no president -- no one is above the law."

[ladjf]

20. I don't think that McCain will do anything that is classy or patriotic. nt

[Danger Mouse]

21. I don't know if McCain is capable of salvaging any of his honor at this point.

[scheming daemons]

22. You're all laughing at him, but grantcart is on to something

Here is a phrase you are likely to hear on the cable networks around 11pm on Tuesday:

"If THAT McCain had been present during the entire election season, he might not have lost in a landslide tonight."


I'm with you grantcart. There is a REASON McCain is not giving his speech in front of supporters, but instead in front of reporters.


A person who expects to win, gives his speech in front of supporters.

A person who wants to be vindictive, gives his speech in front of supporters.



McCain choosing to give his speech to reporters only, speaks VOLUMES.