McCain hasn't even stopped personal campaigning. He gave a speech in NY and has been giving campaigning interviews for the past few days. He looks like an ass in all of this.

Incidentally, starting a post with an erroneous assertion, plucked from your behind, that I "agree" with you, is a particularly sophomoric debating technique. Tsk, tsk.

Almost as imperative as the community organizer Obama

So, you agree that McCain and Obama showing up would not help the situation, which makes McCain's political grandstanding counterproductive. Glad we can agree on something.
I do hope that McCain follows your advice and offers and economic debate in place of the national security debate this Friday.

PD, google "lincoln speech 1860" -- one of his most famous speeches was the Cooper Union Address in February 1860

I sort of stand corrected. What I meant was that Lincoln didn't give overt campaign speeches or conduct debates. Cooper Union could be seen as an attempt by Lincoln to gain greater national recognition, but he's not a candidate at the time. I suspect he thought it would help his forthcoming candidacy, but the prevailing norms required one to be aloof from obvious campaigning.

Lincoln explained in the Summer of 1864 that "I do not really think it is proper in my position for me to make a political speech. . . and . . . being more of a politician than anything else, . . . I am without anything to say."

Different times.

It is imperative that McCain lend his vast economic knowledge to solving this crisis. His clear thinking and visionary ideas like, "I’m glad that whenever they cut interest rates. I wish interest rates were zero," will help get us right back on track.

Almost as imperative as the community organizer Obama lending his vast Marxist knowledge to solving this crisis with his reactionary and failed socialist twitterings.

Saul Alinsky was a Community Organizer too. Pity they never nailed him to a cross.

a formal discussion on a particular matter in a public meeting or legislative assembly, in which opposing arguments are put forward, and usually ends in a vote.

What we have starting Friday, is a jazzed up Question and Answer session. It clearly has elements of the debating techniques, but it's hardly a debate in that classical sense.

I really have better things to do than explain the facts of life to you.

Get informed:

http://www.debates.org/

Don't know much about history? Trouble is Biden knows a hell of a lot about something that never even happened. This bodes so well for the debate.

"After seven years, in which our senior diplomatic personnel were not allowed to make a single contact with Iranians, the Bush administration realized the absurdity of its own policy and sent our leading diplomat to Iran," he said. "The Assistant Secretary of State as he went to Tehran, sat down at the instruction of the President of the United States." . . .

Trouble is, the event Biden described never actually happened.

In fact, the one "meeting" that has taken place was in Geneva, Switzerland, when Under Secretary of State William Burns sat in on a discussion between Iranian representatives and the other "P5+1" political directors involved in nuclear talks. The meeting, while a first, was not a negotiation; Burns was there merely as an observer, and had no formal role or talks with the Iranians.

So, apart from: Burns was not sent to Tehran; he did not go to Tehran; and there was no such instruction from the President; Biden's well up to speed for his debate with Palin.

How to Field Dress a Biden by Sarah Palin.

“there is no specific term for non-"town hall" style debates”

How about non-"town hall" style debates? That seems to work. As you should know by now, I’m very willing to overlook typos, bad grammar, and misstatements. When there is a lack of clarity, I ask for clarification. Anjin had a chance to clarify and he didn’t. It was quite apparent that he didn’t think town hall meeting debates are debates. Not to mention, McCain only said the town hall format was his preference not that he wouldn’t do any other form of debate. Personally I would also like to see the Lincoln\Douglass format as well.

The term debate has been use as it is generally apply to Presidential election. Anjin said “McCain wanted town hall meetings, not debates.”

Probably Anjin-san just used those terms because "town hall" is well understood as a specific form of a debate, while there is no specific term for non-"town hall" style debates.

Dude
Where did McCain say that he would stop all campaigning including all his organization? I guess you can’t understand that there a difference between personal campaigning and organizational campaigning.

Imagine how different the news would be if Obama had decided , for the first time in his political career,to take ONE day out to do his job?
Personally, were all a little better off if he does continue to campaign, the only thing he knows. [as long as Axelrod provides the script!]

lol, all he has to do is fly in vote present then fly out, how hard is it? he does it all the time.
Dang it ain't like he has to take a test how many states we have or something hard like that.

Little dude. McCain announced that he was going to stop all campaigning and mentioned pulling TV ads, etc. He meant that his entire team was gonna stop campaigning. And they haven't. And they won't. Business as usual for McCain.

I don't think Lincoln gave one speech when he ran for office in 1860.

PD, google "lincoln speech 1860" -- one of his most famous speeches was the Cooper Union Address in February 1860; he gave an important speech in New Haven, Connecticut on March 6, 1860 on slavery. I'm sure there were more.