What no one else could do including John McCain and his town hall meeting could not do was get Barack Obama and McCain to appear together at several town hall meetings across America but Obama declined because the format only favored McCain. No one in the media has criticized Obama lately for not accepting McCain's invitation to do town halls that would take the media out of the picture and allow regular people to ask the questions which the McCain camp has been doing since the Republican Primaries. However Obama has not appeared with McCain at any of these town hall meetings but McCain has continued to them which are aimed toward independent and undecided voters who leave his town halls impressed with McCain and to some degree deciding to vote for McCain after leaving.
Now for the first time both Senators John McCain and Barack Obama will make their first joint appearance of this year's 2008 Presidential election as the presumtive Republican and Democratic presidential nominees, respectively, at Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California on August 16th for a leadership and compassion forum. The forum will be a two-hour event where each candidate will take the stage separately for about an hour to respond to Pastor Rick Warren's questions about faith and moral issues such as poverty, HIV/AIDS, climate change and human rights. Pastor Warren is the author of the Purpose Driven Life, which is a best-seller, contacted both candidates personally in order to invite them to the event because with both presidential candidates recently increasing their outreach to the evangelical community than this appearance at the popular evangelical church could help the candidates' appeal to this key voting bloc.
Pastor Warren will be the only one to pose questions to the candidates, as requested by both senators, although the event will be open to the media. Warren has known both candidates before they ran for national office and McCain & Obama, along with other political leaders, have endorsed Warren's P.E.A.C.E. Plan - a 50-year strategy to mobilize millions of local churches around the world to address the five global problems: spiritual emptiness, corrupt leadership, poverty, disease and literacy.
That's why this joint appearance together to a degree really makes me wonder when will the real official appearance take place before voters where the candidates are asked a range of questions by not Pastor Warren but by ordinary voters across America. These are the people who Obama has to reach to out to and these are the people that McCain hopes will swing his way as the General Election approaches in order to combat all of Obama's enthusiasm. I hope that August 16th is not the only time these candidates will be on the campaign trail together because they both candidates owe it to the voters to take the power of the media out of politics as they tour America together campaigning not with Vice Presidential candidates but with each other from town hall to town hall meeting.
When McCain first proposed the idea, I was all for it and if Obama is so charismatic and articulate as I believe he is, than he should have squashed all of McCain's momentum by accepting his town hall proposals and showing the voters that the was the candidate by delivering his plans and goals for America in a clear, concise and precise matter that independent voters and undecided clearly know that Obama was the best choice for President. Now that Obama didn't accept McCain's town hall meeting ideas, all the polls both nationally and state wide show the race for the White House a dead heat with either candidate leading between 1%-3%. As the conventions come closer and closer it is apparent to me that Obama could have buried McCain by now by simply going on town hall meetings with him and taking away one of McCain's most talented campaign tactics which is direct one on one contact voters in smaller venues like town halls.
Clearly Obama could be the candidate that controls both big and small crowds with speeches and Question & Answer. Nonetheless, Obama has not shown that and has preferred bigger venues rather than smaller venues. I don't know whose plan is better but for now McCain and Obama race toward the White House remains a toss up that I can't even call until I see who will be each candidate's Vice Presidential choice.
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