A Kinder, Gentler McCain?

Don't expect Senator John McCain to show up for the last debate of this year's presidential campaign, to be held tonight at 8pm Central time in Hempstead, New York, with the sort of negative attacks that we've been seeing from his campaign both in TV ads and personally from the Senator and his running mate. Recent polling has shown that McCain's attacks have backfired, hurting him far more than they have Senator Obama. Considering how much the McCain campaign has been trying to "play to the crowd" lately with gimmicky rescue plans and gimmicky vice presidential picks, it seems likely that he'll respond to the poll by scaling back those attacks.