McCain suspends campaign, Obama plans to continue

[MAX]

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NEW YORK (CNN) -- Republican presidential candidate John McCain announced Wednesday that he is suspending his campaign to return to Washington and focus on the "historic" crisis facing the U.S. economy.

The Arizona senator called on his Democratic rival, Barack Obama, to do the same. He also urged organizers of Friday's presidential debate at the University of Mississippi to postpone the event.

"I am calling on the president to convene a meeting with the leadership from both houses of Congress, including Senator Obama and myself," McCain told reporters in New York. "It is time for both parties to come together to solve this problem."

There was no immediate response from the Obama campaign.

McCain and his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, were in New York to meet with world leaders at the United Nations. They had met with Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili and Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko.

"Senator, governor, I'm really honored to be here with you. I know you have a very important campaign to run," Saakashvili said. "Overall, I have to say I greatly appreciate the solidarity we felt from the American people."

Earlier, Palin met with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani.

Obama on Wednesday lashed out at the Bush administration and his opponent on the handling of the crisis on Wall Street as well as the $700 billion bailout plan by Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson.

Congress and the White House are trying to negotiate the details of what would be the most sweeping economic intervention by the government since the Great Depression. Bush has asked Congress to act quickly on the bailout proposal following news of failing financial institutions and frozen credit markets.

"The clock is ticking on this crisis. We have to act swiftly, but we also have to get it right," Obama said in Dunedin, Florida. "And that means everyone -- Republicans and Democrats, and the White House and Congress -- must work together to come up with a solution that protects American taxpayers and our economy without rewarding those whose greed helped get us into this problem in the first place."

Obama said it's unacceptable to expect the American people to "hand this administration or any administration a $700 billion check with no conditions and no oversight when a lack of oversight in Washington and on Wall Street is exactly what got us into this mess."

He said struggling homeowners must be taken care of in any economic recovery plan -- and that taxpayers should "not be spending one dime to reward the same Wall Street CEOs whose greed and irresponsibility got us into this mess."

He also hit McCain for switching from his stance as an advocate for market deregulation to a strong supporter of regulation since the Wall Street crisis became front-page news.

"He's suddenly a hard-charging populist," Obama said. "And that's all well and good, but I sure wish he was talking the same way over a year ago, when I introduced a bill that would've helped stop the multimillion-dollar bonus packages that CEOs grab on their way out the door."

McCain's bombshell comes as a new CNN "poll of polls" out of Virginia on Wednesday shows McCain with the slimmest of leads in a state that traditionally has been a safe bet for Republicans.

The latest polls could be a warning sign for McCain that he still has work to do to lock down certain states where previous GOP nominees had to spend little time or effort doing so.

In the new poll of polls, McCain holds a 1 percentage point lead over Obama (47 percent to 46 percent) in Virginia, while 7 percent remain undecided.

The poll of polls is an average of three recent surveys of the state -- MSNBC/Mason-Dixon (September 17-22), ARG (September 17-20) and ABC/The Washington Post (September 18-21). The poll of polls does not have a sampling error.

Blatant publicity stunt: "Oh look I'm so worried about America that I'm going to stop doing something that actually has a chance to put me in a position to actually make some real changes, and pretend that I can actually do something meaningful in the short amount of time leading up to the election." Of course the next line after "I'm 'suspending' my campaign" is "heh heh Barack better do it too!."

Thankfully, Obama isn't falling for it. It's a transparent political gimmick designed to get Obama to take his foot off Mccain's neck; tomorrow the McSame campaign will be whining that Obama is putting politics above country, which is almost certainly the point of this.

[Tanooki]

I find it not surprising in the least bit you'd call it a publicity stunt. Fact is the entire economy is broken, and these politicians need to be back in there doing their job instead of essentially publicly interviewing for another. Both of them were hired to be Senators for their respective states and it makes sense to step away from it just a few days and try and get a fix. This isn't just our economy but many of them in the world it is hosing over horribly. I suppose some selfish types on this wouldn't get that because you know personal political agendas are a bit more important eh?

Honestly I think it's a bad idea for McCain to be doing it if it's him alone because it just leaves the door wide open to gobble up a wider lead and get walked all over with zero responses coming back with the campaign frozen. It's likely political suicide, but if the old man feels doing the job he's already been hired for is more important, good for him, good for the DNC, bad for his party.

[Z.E.I.D.A.N]

A political stunt if I've ever seen one. If you want to suspend your campaign temporarily to work out this bailout fiasco, then fine, but there's absolutely no reason to delay a debate. Millions of people are tuning into that debate because they're scared and confused, and they DESERVE to hear what these candidates have to say about this matter... not to mention it's just two hours on a Friday evening, and not being there inevitably hurts your case as far as motivation to address supporters goes. Of course, my feeling about this is that McCain wants this issue (the economic crisis) to subside so that he can feel more comfortable arguing with Barack on the issues. If Obama says that he won't suspend his campaign, the Republicans will call him unpatriotic; if Obama does suspend his campaign, the crisis will probably get solved faster and McCain can bounce back with talk about foreign policy when that debate finally comes on. Whatever it is, this is still a stunt, and the debate must go on.

[MAX]

McCain misses 65% of his votes in the Senate and now he's suspending his campaign to work on it? He's only doing it to save face in light of all the bloodletting that his campaign has gone through this week, not to mention keep Palin away from the media a little longer (who, by the way, has given TWO interviews so far.) He missed 65% of all votes, he stays on the trail, he constantly flimflams on what should be done or whether it's deregulation's fault, then suddenly, it's two days before the big debate, he's down in the polls, and now. Now, not any point earlier, not any point based on logic or facts, he wants to stop.

[Tanooki]

I agree zeidan not showing up for the debate is infuriating. I've been wanting to hear those 2 go at it for many months now. I hope either McCain changes his mind, or the network delays the debate so the two of them can do it later as people deserve the information both can dish out. To me yes secondarily it is a stunt, but primarily it is something that all of our representatives in both sides of congress I think should be required to go to, hash out, and vote on it as this situation is beyond ugly, it's a global financial cluster****. As is both the campaigns are neck and neck in this and will probably be down to the line so as I said I think it's suicidal for him to be doing this entire freeze especially if Obama doesn't go along with it. I'd rather them both freeze, or both take 1/2 days or whatever working between the two making a speech or whatever and letting the campaigns and the VP nominees hash it out as they work to fix this.

[MAX]

Yeah, sure. "My campaign manager cashed a $15,000 check from Fannie May last month (and incidentally, I lied about it), my veep's favorable rating is cratering, and we're in a huge crisis manufactured by my own party and my party's biggest supporters, and I'm getting my ass kicked, so I'm going to suspend my campaign because after missing 65% of my votes, now I want to hash things out."

I really shouldn't underestimate the ignorance and stupidity of Joe Sixpack, if they are actually going to believe that this is only secondarily a stunt.... we need to send a search party out for peoples common sense.

[DEATHSTAR]

I gotta agree that this is a political delay of game play to stop the clock on the Economic debate. Couple that with the fact neither candidate is commander in chief or has significant influence on this bailout plan... Suspending your campaign looks more politically motivated than out of real concern for the American people.

If McCain and the Republican party were so concerned for the last 8 years they probably wouldn't have been pushing for all the deregulation (that they eventually got) that led to this mess.

This situation doesn't bode well for any Republican at this point and all the pleas and cried for bi-partisan cooperation amount to nothing more than trying to have it both ways and crocodile tears.

I just heard that the debate commission plans to move forward with the debate, Obama is moving forward with the debate, so it's on McCain to show up or risk an "empty chair" debate format which is made of nothing but lose for him. He pretty much has his hand forced at this point, be interesting to see what he does.

[Hottotty]

You gotta hand it to him. Obama's been quite the two-faced salesman this year, but even by his standards this stunt is smoooooooooooth.

I'm gonna miss McCain while he's "working". He's been so cute.

[MAX]

It's sad that (for me anyway) it's almost expected that any politician will have some level of two-facedness.

[DEATHSTAR]

Originally Posted by MAX

It's sad that (for me anyway) it's almost expected that any politician will have some level of two-facedness.

Once again this is true as well. I take them all with a grain of salt and expect a level of "typical politician" in all of them.

[Z.E.I.D.A.N]

What's funny is that what he's defining as "working out the bailout issue" is basically him going to Capitol Hill to vote. Yes, to vote. He's not a part of any economic committee, he has no further influence. Barack Obama will vote too, so really, there's no excuse. There IS such a thing as multitasking; we didn't stop the Iraq War to determine who won the 2004 election, so this either shows that McCain can't handle two things at once (which I doubt), or he's just dicking around like he always does.

[Hottotty]

Originally Posted by Z.E.I.D.A.N

What's funny is that what he's defining as "working out the bailout issue" is basically him going to Capitol Hill to vote. Yes, to vote. He's not a part of any economic committee, he has no further influence. Barack Obama will vote too, so really, there's no excuse. There IS such a thing as multitasking; we didn't stop the Iraq War to determine who won the 2004 election, so this either shows that McCain can't handle two things at once (which I doubt), or he's just dicking around like he always does.

Obviously. But he's not doing it trick people like you. He's doing it to trick people who get tricked by this stuff. Like... idiots. Basically every undecided voter in the blue, yellow, and red states below:

[Lizzaroni]

Oh look I'm so worried about America that I'm going to stop doing something that actually has a chance to put me in a position to actually make some real changes,

The presidency was never meant to be so powerful, and if Congress would grow some nuts, maybe they could rein it back in.

EDIT: and it's not a publicity stunt so much as an attempt to avoid directing Obama directly (via the debates) and save face while doing so.

[MAX]

that will nevvvver happen

[Tanooki]

Never seen a chart use 5 colors before for the electoral voting. I know red is R, D is blue, and yellow usually is the toss ups. I know one thing is that KY votes well into the R area so that's why I'm asking.

Death you make some good points, but let's not be fooled here this isn't just the republicans fault. For the last 2 years where things have been cratering even worse you had Sen Dodd and Rep Frank who head up the committees that deal with these things just doing the sit and spin too. I also found it cute that max would bring up the whole Fannie Mae thing considering Obama is taking economic advice from 2 former heads/high ups of that entity that bailed with some very nice golden parachutes.

Zeidan obviously he's dicking around on a hell of a gamble. For the vast majority of swing voters and those who still have their minds to make up McCain is basically doing the poker move of 'all-in' on this one. If he can run in there and get some sort of bill on Bush's desk by the end of Friday, very worst, before the stock market opens next Monday he can play it off as the guy who came in, kept his promise, rallied the R-troops, and got that sucker signed 'saving the economy' and it's very transparent. Thing is, if they can't get that done, the market is going to after all this bs and doomsaying will drop likely sub-10000 level and he'll go out in a blaze of glory over it. The plus, McCain gets a very strong shot at the big job, the negative for him...he screws his shot and likely his senate seat straight to hell along with the ability for the republican party to see the WH again for another 8-12 years and at least that long for the congress(either side.)