Quickly going on the offensive against Barack Obama, John McCain on Wednesday challenged the freshly minted presidential nominee to a series of 10 town hall debates.
“I also suggest we fly together to the first town hall meeting as a symbolically important act embracing the politics of civility,” McCain wrote in a letter to Obama.
Obama did not reject the offer outright but balked at the format.
“The idea of joint town halls is appealing and one that would allow a great conversation to take place,” Obama campaign manager David Plouffe said. “We would recommend a format that is less structured and lengthier than the McCain campaign suggests, one that more closely resembles the historic debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas.”
The Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858 amounted to a series of speeches and rebuttals, each lasting from 30 to 90 minutes, with no participation from the audience. That format might favor Obama, widely considered the superior orator, over McCain, who excels at town hall meetings in which ordinary citizens can directly question the candidates.
“That’s why I proposed this format,” McCain told reporters. “I know from many years of experience that this is the most effective format. Now, if there is some way to modify the details of it, then I’ll be glad to, obviously, discuss that. But I want a town hall meeting.”
Plouffe said that Obama’s campaign, “having just secured our party’s nomination,” would need some time to consider the offer. McCain aides suggested that was precisely their intent — to knock Obama off balance just hours after he clinched the Democratic presidential nomination by vanquishing Hillary Clinton.
McCain’s challengecame nine days after he offered to “educate” Obama about Iraq by flying there with the freshman senator from Illinois, who has not been to Iraq in more than two years. Obama responded by saying he would consider such a trip, but not with McCain because that would be a “political stunt.”
Obama was less dismissive of McCain’s debate challenge. Plouffe even talked by phone with his counterpart in the McCain camp, campaign manager Rick Davis, about the proposed debates. McCain spokeswoman Jill Hazelbaker said there was reason to “celebrate” what she called “an agreement, in spirit, between the McCain and Obama campaigns to participate in joint town hall appearances.”
