They ought to call John McCain, Diamond Jim because he's been rollin the dice and so far it's come up seven.

     First he took a big gamble with Sarah the Hockey Mom and it instantly changed the dynamics of the contest.

     This week he rolled them again with a gutsy move to end his campaign in order to deal with the financial mess on Wall Street.  While you will never get anyone to admit it, from this curbside seat, he was really setting a trap and Barack Obama took the bait…hook, line and sinker.

     Obama would not acquiesce to McCain's call to scrub Friday night's first televised debate.  That was no surprise.  You seldom see a candidate in any race do what his opponent tells him to do. Arrogance is part of the reason and there is also the fear that you look weak if you succumb to some else's challenge.

     Instead Obama told everyone that presidents should know how to multi-task.  For most voters who do not talk on the phone, drive their car, text message the office and read their email all at the same time, multi-task is a meaningless term.  Obama may be surprised to find out that most "real" people don't do that.

     By rebuffing McCain's calculated overture to postpone the debate,  Obama opened the door for his challenger to run this ad:

     (John McCain looks into camera)  When this country was facing a meltdown on Wall Street, it was time to put our country first. And I did that.  I shutdown my campaign and went to Washington to do my job.  My opponent still wanted to debate while the country was in crisis.  Once more Barack Obama put his own ambitions first and his country second.

     Perhaps Obama can salvage something from his miscue especially if McCain is a no show for the debate, but for now it sure looks like the Senator from Illinois got rolled by Diamond Jim.

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