The Obama/McCain Debate's at Nine

Where the Action Is. Barack Obama and John McCain are going to debate tonight at 9:00 eastern standard time. I'll be live-blogging with a packed crowd of faculty, students, and friends in Rader Hall on the campus of Morehead State University in Morehead, KY.

The McCain Set-Up. If John McCain and his campaign were merely smart, they would view this first debate more as an opportunity to slow down the bleeding than anything else. McCain is getting hammered in the press for his "suspend the campaign" stunt and hammered even more because it looks like he torpedoed an emerging agreement to focus attention on himself. McCain has also lost ground in the polling with several surveys showing Obama stretching out to a 5-6 point lead over the last three days. The best strategy for McCain would be to thank god the debate's on foreign policy, hope Jim Lehrer doesn't switch topics to the economy, and persistently advocate his ideas without trying to be overly challenging or showy. That way, the McCain campaign could look for the bleeding to stop before launching more aggressive attacks on Obama next week.

But it's likely that McCain and his campaign team think they're too smart for patience and that McCain will pull off some sort of stunt to make Obama look bad on foreign policy. Maybe McCain will come out with a provocative statement about Russia, Iran, or North Korea. There's always a chance that some kind of campaign will work, but the chances are that the media and the television audience will be pretty skeptical.

One tip: If Jim Lehrer asks McCain about Sarah Palin's foreign policy experience, McCain is doomed. That might be an exaggeration, but, Palin's taking even more of a drubbing in the media than McCain as she comes off her disastrous CBS interview. McCain would be in a very tough spot if Lehrer decides to stick it to him by asking a Palin question.

The Obama Set-Up. Obama's in a great situation. He's leading and McCain's been knocked off his aggressive game by the events of this week. Obama's natural instinct would be to be cautious, take few risks, and let the debate be a boring draw. But the Obama campaign has gotten more aggressive since the Democratic convention and he has two big hammers with him. First, Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki now agrees with Obama's time-table plan. Moreover, the Bush administration and John McCain have come to agree with Obama's insistence that Afghanistan is the primary threat in the war on terror. McCain will probably come at Obama with Obama's failure to support the surge in Iraq. But Obama shouldn't have much of a problem dealing with that.

Prediction: I've been horrible at predictions this election, but I think Obama will come out of the debate looking like "the leading candidate for president." He could emerge even better than that if McCain continues to self-destruct, but looking like the leading candidate is pretty damn good.