McCain Tries to (Re)Reboot Economic Plan

Posted by Steve Benen, Washington Monthly at 6:51 AM on October 14, 2008.

Consider a brief timeline of events.

On Saturday, the McCain campaign leaked word that it would launch a new economic plan in response to the financial crisis, which "would amount to a do-over from the hasty introduction of McCain's mortgage buy-up program."

On Sunday morning, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), one of McCain's closest allies and most enthusiastic campaign surrogates, confirmed that McCain would, in fact, unveil a detailed new economic proposal on Monday.

On Sunday evening, the McCain campaign said Graham didn't know what he was talking about. A spokesperson said the campaign had no plans to announce "any policy proposals outside of the proposals that John McCain has announced."

On Monday afternoon, shortly after Barack Obama unveiled a detailed new economic proposal, the McCain campaign announced it would unveil a new financial policy after all on Tuesday.

So, over the course of 72 hours, according to his own campaign, McCain had a new economic plan, didn't have a new economic plan, and now does have a new economic plan.

The speech isn't due until 11 a.m. eastern, so the campaign's plans may change yet again sometime this morning.

What's more, Noam Scheiber added:

What I love about the fact that McCain is officially "retooling" again after deciding not to retool after previously deciding to retool is that you know the proposals he finally trots out will have been deeply considered, painstakingly constructed, and elaborately fine-tuned.

It's not like he'd just pull a bunch of ideas out of his back pocket because people were disappointed when he didn't retool the first time.

It's almost as if they're trying to look erratic, unable to deal with the pressure of a crisis.