McCain asks to suspend campaign
John “I’m desperate” McCain wants to postpone the presidential debate on Friday. He also wants to suspend his campaign to deal with the financial crisis. He wins either way. Obama is creaming him on the economy. If Obama doesn’t get off the campaign trail, then all we’ll hear is “Obama First vs. Country First”. If Obama gets off the trail then he can’t continue to whip on McCain.
Watching the McCain campaign is like watching a car accident in slow motion.
Update: This crisis was bad yesterday and the day before. Why didn’t he suspend then? Because as bad as things were he was still close in the polls. Now, not so much. The Washington Post/ABC Poll has Obama up 9 (52% to 43%) and a LA Times/Bloomberg poll has Obama with a 13 point lead on the question”which candidate could do a better job of handling the financial crisis as president next year”. McCain had to do something.
Update 2: Politico.com has McCain’s statement.
Update 3: fuddmain correctly notes that Lincoln, FDR campaigned during wars, pretty major ones if the history books are correct. And so did Nixon and Bush Jr. I want a President who can walk and chew gum at the same time.
Update 4: It should be noted that the Washington Post/ABC Poll is probably crap. So it would seem that McCain is just panicked. I also want a President who doesn’t panic in a crisis.
Update 5: McCain couldn’t be bothered to get off the trail to cast any votes for his day job as a Senator, but now he wants to dig in and do some work. I think McCain should suspend his campaign until Nov 5.
Update 6: Apparently, the Obama campaign asked to work with the McCain campaign on crafting a joint message in response to the financial crisis and McCain agreed around 2:30. Around 3 it seems the McCain campaign asked to call of the debate and suspend the presidential campaign in order to deal with the crisis. More here.
