What if McCain just doesn’t show?

With the first of the presidential debates due to start at 2am UK time there’s still a lot of confusion over whether or not the GOP nominee, John McCain will actually show up. The Irish bookmakers, Intrade, have been running a market on whether or not this will happen.

The venue is in Oxford Mississippi where something like $5m has been spent on organising the event and everything looked fine until McCain’s call on Wednesday for it to be postponed because of the bailout plan discussions.

Obama has said he will be there – so if the GOP man doesn’t show then there will be an empty place on the podium.

According to the Christian Science Monitor about an hour ago: “Senator McCain now says he’s “hopeful” he will make it to Oxford. But unless an emergency bill is ready for a vote before then, he may still skip it. If that happens, it would the first time in recent history that a major party candidate left a podium empty during a formal presidential debate.”

This is a high risk strategy by McCain and all adds to the impression that he’s a gambler to the core. Just like his Palin pick McCain can pull things out of the hat which can be highly risky.

My guess is that he will be there – it would just too big a deal for him not to show up.

One thing he’s going to have to deal with if the bail-out plan fails to happen is getting the blame. Everything was going to plan, it is being said, until he upped the ante with the yesterday’s big meeting.

So a big night ahead.

In the White House Race betting the McCain price has moved out to 1.8/1. Just over a week ago he was heading towards evens.

Mike Smithson

UPDATE: ICM poll

Con 41 (-3)

Lab 32 (+3)

Lib Dem 18 (-1)

Double Carpet