McCain’s (to No) Avail

Yes, the McCain folks seemed to have canceled a press availability today, at a time when McCain would probably get some questions about things he doesn’t want to talk about. To be fair — or perhaps to put it in context — McCain generally will do several avails a day, Obama just one or two a week, if that. And when Ambinder (rightly) points out that the national press “ask qualitatively different questions” than local press, that doesn’t mean that the national press’s questions are of better quality. The national press is obsessed with process and meta-narrative and catching the candidate in a flip/flop/contradiction/gaffe. The local press do, honest to God, ask about actual issues and policy. Not issues and policy that you or I might care about (they tend to be HYPER-local; water filtration plant placement and such), but they do. Both sets of reporters are capable of asking something dumb.