So obviously Obama is having a good week. He’s up by 9 (52-43%) in the latest ABC-Washington Post poll, and is increasing his lead in the necessary battleground states.  Furthermore, John McCain is taking another one of his patented huge and insane gambles by trying to get out of the first debate!

Unfortunately, Bill Clinton seems to be doing everything he can to impede the momentum!  First this week he said that “Palin has energized both sides,” then he claimed he was putting off campaiginng for Obama until “after the Jewish holidays”(?!?) then, yesterday, instead of capitalizing on McCain’s wacko debate stunt, he said that McCain acted “in good faith” by trying to delay the debate!

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/09/bill-clinton-do.html

On another note, I’ve developed several interesting theories as to why McCain pulled his stunt (the real answer is probably a combination):

1. So Palin could avoid her debate:  Interestingly (and little publicized), McCain wanted the rescheduled debate to happen on the night that the VICE-presidential debate was supposed to happen.  The VP debate would then be rescheduled for some unspecified other time (or never.)  Palin has been bombing in recent interviews (Charlie Gibson & Katie Couric), and maybe they figure the less exposure the better.

2. So McCain could avoid HIS debate:  Maybe McCain’s debate prep is going really terribly and he freaked out and tried to think of ANYTHING that could get him out of it.  Like a kid who realized he’s going to flunk a test and pulls the fire alarm.

3. Continued strategy of crazy stunts:  Maybe McCain saw the latest ABC-Washington Post poll, realized he was heading straight to loser-ville, and decided to change the direction of the race once again with another insane-o stunt.  Since all the voters care about is the economy right now, and since Obama owns that issue, he would have to somehow inject himself into that issue.  The only problem with this theory is that it doesn’t exactly explain why he would also try to delay the debate, instead of just heading back to Washington to “fix things once and for all” or whatever he is saying  he will do.