McCain Reins In Campaign In Vain

Do you think McCain still believes that the fundamentals of the economy are strong? On the surface, it seems that he has finally listened to his advisors and is treating this financial crisis seriously.

Because up to now, he has been absolutely frenetic in his reaction to the situation-- first he was against the AIG bailout, then he was for it. After months of maintaining that the economy was sound, he switched to calling it a crisis. After his knee-jerk call to fire the chairman of the SEC, he changed his tune and supported him. Finally, he called for bi-partisan efforts to deal with the crisis-- but then politicized the issue by unilaterally suspending his campaign and calling off the upcoming debate while he flies to Washington to insert himself into the negotiations on the bailout package.

Whew! Where do I begin? Congressmen on the Hill have been negotiating since last week on this package and are apparently close to a deal-- the last thing they need now is an eleventh-hour opportunist swooping in and mucking up things. And why the "campaign timeout" anyway? Is McCain telling us that he can't handle more than one problem at one time? Personal computers have been able to multi-task since the mid-80's-- should we give Brother John a new nickname ("Mc-DOS")? Or is the possible reason for this delay that McCain isn't ready for the debate (or the drubbing he would get when-- as expected-- the focus would be on the economy and the impact of years of deregulation)?

McCain said he would be suspending all political advertising as well-- although this is likely because he is running low on campaign funds. Even historians have come out and noted that the Civil War, the Great Depression and World War II didn't prompt suspensions of presidential campaigns. McCain is also proposing that the 9/26 debate be moved to 10/2-- but no word on what would happen to the VP debate (maybe McCain is trying to derail the VP debate).

McCain also canceled his appearance on the David Letterman show, saying that he had to urgently fly back to Washington to help resolve the crisis. That turned out to be yet another lie-- when Katie Couric asked for a last-minute interview, he decided to stay in New York for that. And then he decided to stay longer in New York for Bill Clinton's Global Initiative event on Thursday morning, not returning to DC until Thursday afternoon. So is our economy in crisis or not, John? What is more important-- scoring points at a fund-raising event or solving the financial crisis? This smacks to me like just more politicking-- another knee-jerk reaction to being behind in the polls, not ready for the debate, and low in campaign funds.