McCain to take off the gloves in Nashville duel

Flagging in the polls and becoming increasingly desperate, Senator John McCain was at a campaign stop in Colorado on Thursday when the inevitable question came up from a supporter: “When are you going to take the gloves off?”

The Republican presidential candidate brusquely replied, “How about Tuesday night?”

So one can well expect a much more aggressive McCain in Nashville, Tennessee, when he faces off against Democratic candidate Barack Obama in the second of four public debates that could decide the election.

Failed to erode

With just a month to go before the polls, the McCain camp has failed to erode Mr Obama’s lead in opinion polls following the crisis facing US financial institutions.

Mr McCain moved fast to demonstrate leadership in the wake of the financial disaster and was faster than Mr Obama in pushing support for the massive $700 billion rescue package passed by Congress on Friday.

He has, in the last few days, also moved to distance himself from President George Bush, whose administration he is now blaming — even if only by proxy through comments made by running mate Sarah Palin during a vice-presidential debate last Wednesday — for mismanaging the economy.

But that has not helped him close the gap that Mr Obama opened, and it is now evident Mr McCain will now be going for the jugular.

The Republican candidate comes into the Nashville duel with his back against the ropes, as exemplified by the decision to cede Michigan State, where his campaign stopped all advertising and the candidate cancelled a campaign trip there.

That was probably a decision that made sense so that resources could be re-directed towards areas where the prospects are more realistic.

But abandoning a key battleground state where he had earlier seemed capable of ending the traditional, but narrow, Democratic Party dominance sends the message that Mr McCain is starting to despair.

To regain lost ground, he must do something dramatic, and the new strategy seems aimed at a much more aggressive mode that drops all civility to adopt a vicious campaign that directly targets Mr Obama.

The idea is to shift the focus away from the economy, where Mr McCain is vulnerable, and go directly for personalised attacks intended to raise doubts, mostly in the majority white community, about Mr Obama’s character, background, competence and political and social links.

One campaign was dropped in the lap of McCain strategists by the influential New York Times on Saturday.

The paper ran an article claiming that Mr Obama was closely associated with radical 1960s activist Bill Ayers, who led a group called the Weather Underground.

The group was responsible for a series of harmless bombings four decades ago during the tumultuous period of the anti-Vietnam War protests. Targets included the Pentagon and Legislative House.

Muslim radical

Mr Ayers is now a professor at the University of Illinois in Mr Obama’s home town, Chicago. The two have lived in the same neighbourhood and have served on the boards of several charity and community groups in the area together.

Shortly after the article was published, Mr McCain’s running mate Sarah Palin told supporters that Mr Obama is “palling around with terrorists who would target their own country.”

Her remarks coincided with a deluge of e-mails renewing claims that Mr Obama is a foreign-born Muslim radical.

The gloves, it seems, are actually off ahead of the pivotal Nashville debate that is likely to be much more robust that the first genteel affair.

In Nashville, the capital of a state where he enjoys a comfortable lead, Mr McCain will be virtually on home ground.

The latest polls this weekend have Mr McCain with an almost unassailable lead of 53 percent to Mr Obama’s 38 percent in the race for 11 electoral college votes in the state of Tennessee.

But still Mr McCain should be concerned that in a state where he should be surging towards a certain landslide, his impressive margin has been narrowing slightly.

From the middle of August, he commanded a solid 55 percent of the vote in the state to Mr Obama’s 36.3.

But from the end of September, his numbers started dipping slightly, to the 53.7 recorded over the weekend, while Mr Obama’s rose by a similar ratio.

The numbers will probably even out in Tennessee and Mr Obama is unlikely to close the gap, but all the same, Mr McCain’s supporters in the state will be putting all their energies into presenting a show of force in Nashville.

The event has generated a lot of excitement with Belmont University sprucing itself up, ready to make history for hosting the first ever presidential debate in Tennessee.

Mr Obama over the weekend was campaigning in Virginia while Mr McCain was in his home state, Arizona, as crews put final touches on the debate venue.

By Saturday lights, sound and broadcast systems were in place ahead of the debate that will take a unique format.

Instead of a moderator asking questions, the Gallup Organisation was asked to select between 80 and 120 Tennessee residents to ask the candidates questions in a “town hall-style” debate.

An estimated 3,000 media personnel from all over the world have taken up all available hotel rooms in Nashville.