It’s indeed a shame that, in the midst of both a presidential campaign and a major financial/economic crisis, that one’s mind immediately starts looking to ascribe political motivations to any action or statement.
So McCain wants to “suspend the campaign” and postpone the Friday night debate.
Senator John McCain said Wednesday that he would temporarily suspend his presidential campaign on Thursday to return to Washington to deal with the financial crisis and the $700 billion bailout package now before Congress.
Mr. McCain said he told Senator Barack Obama that he was asking the Commission on Presidential Debates to postpone the debate scheduled for Friday night.
“I am calling on the president to convene a meeting with the leadership from both houses of Congress, including Senator Obama and myself,” he said. “It is time for both parties to come together to solve this problem.”
And, alas, given the high level of (sometimes bumbling) raw politics from the McCain camp, my immediate reactions are:
- He’s lost all momentum, so he wants to bring both campaigns to a halt so that he can redefine the playing field, start both campaigns again from zero when it suits him, etc.
- People have been complaining about his lack of leadership, so he’s going to show he’s more interested in leading us out of this mess than in seeking political advantage — whether or not he can actually contribute anything to the debate or solution-making.
- As a corollary to the previous two, if Obama continues to campaign, then suddenly he’s the one taking undue and unseemly political advantage.
- McCain’s been pressured by folks on the Right both to support the Paulson plan without reservation, or, conversely, to reject it completely. This buys him time and lets him do something that won’t (yet) tick off both sides.
- If what you’re doing isn’t working, do something different.
I suppose there is an outside chance that McCain actually wants to do the right thing, that he feels he can contribute to finding a solution, etc. I really wish I thought that was the case.
I’ll be interested to see what other folks think.
(via Margie)
My first reaction was “It’s a cynical ploy”. But he puts Obama in a position where whatever he does will be perceived as wrong by someone.
Of course, somebody with Osama Bin Laden in drag as his running-mate clearly has no principles whatsoever.
Standard Rovian tactic of taking any initiative from the opposition and forcing them to react and stay on the defensive. But you have to give McCain credit, after missing 58% of his votes this session of congress he now sees the perfect time to grandstand and be all mavericky.
What someone needs to do is tell him it would be truely mavericky to suspend his campaign until 11/05/08.