KEY POINTS:
When the inevitable flood of books streams out from this election campaign, the one detailing the inner workings of the McCain HQ will make very interesting reading.
If Senator John McCain and his running mate Governor Sarah Palin are 'mavericks', their campaign follows the same difficult-to-plot jig-jag. For several weeks, the Republican campaign has been twisting in tactical contortions and muddling its messages in a scattergun bid to win as many headlines and news cycles as possible.
Voters have seen McCain make sudden changes, such as temporarily suspending his campaign and heading to Washington. There have also been positional flip-flops such as calling for the firing of the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission and then back-tracking on it, and claiming that "the fundamentals of our economy are strong"and then saying that the economy was in "crisis" .
For a long time McCain ran as an above-the-fray candidate of 'experience'. That changed in late July when he turned to Steve Schmidt, a protege of the Republican political guru Karl Rove. Since then the campaign's pattern has been an anti-pattern.
It scored some early poll success with its Three Airheads ad and surprise Palin selection, pushing Barack Obama off balance and making him look slow to react.
After two psyche-shattering election losses with presidential candidates seemingly incapable of sniffing out a jugular - and much less lunging for one - nervous Democrats worried it could be three times unlucky. After the Republican Convention, Democrats saw Obama's lead crumble in Palin's dust. Perhaps he wasn't being aggressive enough? With all the underlying factors in his favour, why wasn't he doing better?
But the McCain campaign tripped up with its response to the economic crisis. A combination of the McCain campaign's volatility and the Obama campaign's solidity achieved the unlikely feat of making the inexperienced rookie look like the rock in the storm.
Consider the McCain campaign's approach to the first (failed) House of Representatives bailout vote.
Just hours beforehand, McCain accused Obama of passively watching while the economy tanked. "I've never been afraid of stepping in to solve problems for the American people, and I'm not going to stop now. Senator Obama took a very different approach to the crisis our country faced. At first he didn't want to get involved. Then he was monitoring the situation. That's not leadership. That's watching from the sidelines."
McCain also said it wasn't his style to phone-in advice. Then he was pictured doing exactly that.
Senior policy adviser Doug Holtz-Eakin told MSNBC at one point: "Where was Barack Obama for today? He's phoning it in, phoning it in one more time."
Then after the vote failed, McCain accused Obama of injecting unnecessary partisanship into efforts to pass the legislation. Obama was apparently in the thick of it enough to put his political ambitions first. Holtz-Eakin added: "This bill failed because Barack Obama and the Democrats put politics ahead of country."
But then the campaign returned to the theme of Obama fiddling while Rome burned. McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds: "We welcome Barack Obama's new-found interest in passing this critical economic rescue of our economy, but the American people needed leadership last week, and our next President can't wait until after the levees break to start making phone calls."
Obama campaign manager David Plouffe described McCain's response to the financial crisis as "erratic". The McCain campaign in response, said Reuters, emphasised his willingness to take political risks. McCain friend Senator Joe Lieberman said: "He took the risk, he came back."
Yet in the first debate, McCain tried to stress his opponent "did not understand" foreign affairs, was inexperienced and held risky and naive positions. Palin on Saturday referred to Obama as "reckless". For the McCain campaign risk plus McCain equals good; risk plus Obama equals bad.
Obama, with his iced-to-go demeanour, has been cautious and consistent. He said he didn't think it was a good idea to bring presidential politics to bear on the bailout negotiations. And that was reminiscent of his approach in early September of not wanting to visit hurricane hit areas because it would get in the way of relief efforts.
Obama's unflappable inner chill bin has really become his not-so-secret weapon. He has stuck to his message of "change". The economic crisis has suddenly given his campaign a clearer focus and more substantial air. People used to wonder, "change what exactly?" The economy has become a big part of the answer.
By providing the public with both steadiness and a steady pattern of behaviour in a crisis, voters have been given a chance to consider what kind of president he could be.
Obama's election hopes are based on the idea that voters want a less confrontational style of politics. Although he's not opposed to throwing tacks, he's good at blunting the edges. Dartmouth College professor of government Linda Fowler told AFP: "Obama looked presidential [in the debate]. If he continues to look like he can handle tough situations, he'll come out stronger than ever."
His hopes are also based on cool planning, rather than emotive unknowns. They are based on an extensive ground operation of donors, volunteers and campaign offices, organising voter registration drives and, he expects, a big turnout on the day.
The election race heads into the final weeks with McCain gambling on pugilistic feistiness and Obama preparing a punishing defence. On Sunday Palin fired up the flame-thrower with her claim that Obama is essentially 'un-American' and "palling around with terrorists". A downward dive was always likely - McCain cannot win if the race stays as it is. Yesterday all three national tracking polls put Obama's lead at seven.
Obama is far better placed than McCain to gain 270 Electoral College votes and become president. Pollster Rasmussen calculates that when 'safe', 'likely' and 'leaning' states are added up, the Democrats have 264 EC votes and the Republicans have 185. (RCP puts the split at 264-163). Obama only has to pick up one or two of the six toss-up states to win, but McCain needs all of them. These states all voted for Bush in 2004: Colorado, Florida, North Carolina, Nevada, Ohio and Virginia. RCP says Obama is ahead by 3 per cent in Colorado, by 3 per cent in Florida, by 0.5 per cent in North Carolina, by 1.8 per cent in Nevada, by 3 per cent in Ohio and by 2.4 per cent in Virginia.
From a political point of view, the curious aspect of McCain's latest change of tactics is that it has been openly, extensively, previewed.
On Friday, when McCain was asked when he would 'take the gloves off'. He replied: "How 'bout Tuesday night," in reference to the second presidential debate (which is on tomorrow at 2pm our time.)
On Saturday the Politico news website reported Republican National Committee press secretary Alex Conant as saying: "Barack Obama's readiness will return to being the central subject of debate."
A former communications director for President George W. Bush said: "They've got to spend every day trying to make Obama unacceptable."
The Washington Post quoted a senior Republican operative: "We're going to get a little tougher. We've got to question this guy's associations. There's no question that we have to change the subject here."
And McCain adviser Greg Strimple predicted "a very aggressive last 30 days. We are looking forward to turning a page on this financial crisis and getting back to discussing [Obama's] aggressively liberal record and how he will be too risky for Americans."
Firstly, why draw attention to the fact that you want to switch voters' attentions away from the economy?
The bailout bill has passed but the economy is still in great difficulty with the jobless rate the highest since just after the September 11 attacks. The voters are keen to hear what the candidates are going to do to for Main Street. And yet the McCain campaign is essentially saying 'sorry, that's not a discussion we want to have'. Are voters going to be impressed by that?
Secondly, the Republicans firing first provides Obama and the Democrats with the defence of self-defence and the moral high ground of 'we're the ones who want to talk about the issues'. Calling the McCain campaign out on 'Swiftboating' is also yet another way of tying the candidate to the unpopular President Bush.
Thirdly, it's questionable whether 'Pitbull' Palin - known for exaggerations over her governing record - is the most credible person to take the kick off. The campaign clearly believes her down-home style is ideal to get through to swing-state voters. But they're also the people - in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan - hardest hit by the downturn and her speeches reportedly offer generalities and few details on the issues.
The McCain campaign is no doubt calculating that, like Senator Joe Biden in the vice-presidential debate, the Democrats will avoid bashing Palin directly. But anything she brings into the arena can be taken as an opportunity for tit for tat. For instance, Obama surrogates immediately raised the issue of McCain's ties to Charles Keating, a convicted savings and loan owner, two decades ago.
McCain is pushing Palin forward again as a draw to excite the party faithful. She is certainly doing that, but she has a lot of baggage for the wider electorate. A Time poll last week found Palin viewed favourably by 47 per cent of likely voters and unfavourably by 40 per cent. In comparison Biden's favourable/unfavourable ratings were 50-31 per cent, McCain's 54-38 per cent and Obama's 60-33 per cent. Women preferred Biden, 51-27 per cent, to Palin, 42-45 per cent.
Dragging the tone down even further than it has been carries risk for both candidates at a time when party bickering is deeply unpopular. As anyone who watched the first two debates on CNN knows, its focus group worms slithered southwards in disgust at any low blows.
Independents and swing voters tell pollsters they are especially allergic to Washington finger-pointing and are hungry for specifics about policies to improve their lot and the country's fortunes.
McCain's bristling first debate performance, rated highly by pundits, was given a firm thumbs down by the public in post-debate polls. Obama, running as the candidate of 'change' and 'hope', risks getting dragged into a mud-wrestle and getting distracted from what is working for him. He needs to appear tough but in control.
The second debate will be under a town hall format where an audience of undecided voters will get to ask the candidates questions. Overt sarcasm and anger may not go over that well.
After the first debate New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd wished for a re-working of the court scene from A Few Good Men, where Tom Cruise (Obama) goads Jack Nicholson (McCain) into losing it. Maybe something like it will be on the cards tomorrow.
