Obama Rejects McCain's Call for Debate 'Time Out', Both Candidates Will Meet with Bush

Posted by AlterNet Staff, AlterNet at 1:00 PM on September 24, 2008.

The following is a news round up of the continuing story of McCain's sudden decision to suspend his campaign and cancel his debate appearance.

Obama and McCain have agreed to meet with Bush in the White House:

Shortly after the announcement was made that Obama would attend the meeting, the presidential candidates issued a joint statement Wednesday night in which they said the American people are facing a moment of economic crisis.

Read The Full Obama-McCain Joint Statement

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Letterman reacts to McCain's suspension of his campaign and McCain's cancellation of his appearance on Letterman's show:

"You don't suspend your campaign. This doesn't smell right. This isn't the way a tested hero behaves." And he joked: "I think someone's putting something in his metamucil."

"He can't run the campaign because the economy is cratering? Fine, put in your second string quarterback, Sarah Palin. Where is she?"

"What are you going to do if you're elected and things get tough? Suspend being president? We've got a guy like that now!"


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Obama Rejects McCain's Proposal

Nico Pitney from the Huffington Post: Barack Obama rejected the proposal -- put forward by John McCain today -- that the two presidential candidates leave the campaign trail, delay Friday's debate, and return to Washington to work on a bailout package for the economy.



"Presidents are going to have to deal with more than one thing at a time," he said, "it is not necessary for us to think we can do only one thing and suspend everything else."



Expressing concern about infusing "Capitol Hill with presidential politics," Obama said it was his desire to see the debate go forward.



"With respect to the debates it is my belief that this is exactly the time when the American people need to hear from the person who in roughly 40 days will be responsible for this mess," he said. "I think it is going to be part of the president's job to deal with more than one thing at once. I don't see why we can't be constructive in helping with this problem."



Obama, who would not commit to taking advertisements off the air as McCain's campaign has, delivered his remarks hours after McCain announced the suspension of his campaign. The Arizona Republican insisted that it was time for the two candidates to return to work to help push forward a bi-partisan bailout package to deal with the financial crisis.



Earlier in the afternoon, Democrats in Congress were already calling out McCain for engaging in what was described, at various times, as a "Hail Mary pass" and a "deeply cynical" ploy.



"The debate should take place as scheduled," Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in an interview with NPR to be broadcast this afternoon. "We have to be able to do a couple of things at once. That's what leadership requires."



Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said in a statement that McCain's move would actually impair negotiations over the bailout by introducing politics into the equation.

"I understand that the candidates are putting together a joint statement at Senator Obama's suggestion," said Reid. "But it would not be helpful at this time to have them come back during these negotiations and risk injecting presidential politics into this process or distract important talks about the future of our nation's economy. If that changes, we will call upon them. We need leadership; not a campaign photo op."



Later, Reid personally delivered his statement to McCain over the phone after the Arizona Republican called the Majority Leader. "Sorry, John, I already issued this statement," Reid told McCain, a Democratic staffer told the Huffington Post.


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Whether the move was a political ploy on the part of the Republican candidate, Obama wouldn't say. He did, however, note that he was the one who first broached McCain with the idea of releasing a joint statement on the crisis. That came in the form of an 8:30 a.m phone call this morning which McCain never answered. According to Obama, the two campaigns spoke six hours later, where it was suggested that in addition to the joint statement the candidates would meet in Washington D.C. with congressional leaders. Shortly thereafter, however, McCain had announced in front of television cameras that he was putting a temporary stop to the campaign functions.



"My assumption was that the joint statement would go out initially," said Obama.


McCain's Calls for Time Out
By: Nico Pitney, Huffington Post


Why does John McCain suddenly want to suspend his presidential campaign and postpone Friday's debate? His campaign surrogates are saying it's a typical "maverick" move, that McCain is simply "putting country first." Let's look at the evidence:



1) As Ben Smith notes, McCain's move "is a mark, most of all, that he doesn't like the way this campaign is going. ... The only thing that's changed in the last 48 hours is the public polling."



2) The idea of uniting the campaigns to find a bipartisan solution to the Wall Street crisis wasn't even McCain's idea. A few minutes ago, Obama spokesman Bill Burton emailed to reporters:

"At 8:30 this morning, Senator Obama called Senator McCain to ask him if he would join in issuing a joint statement outlining their shared principles and conditions for the Treasury proposal and urging Congress and the White House to act in a bipartisan manner to pass such a proposal. At 2:30 this afternoon, Senator McCain returned Senator Obama's call and agreed to join him in issuing such a statement. The two campaigns are currently working together on the details."

3) John McCain has skipped more votes during this session than any member of the Senate except for Tim Johnson, who had major brain surgery. All of a sudden, McCain demands that the presidential race shut down so he can return to Washington?



4) For all of his sudden urgency, McCain acknowledged just yesterday that he had not even read the administration's three-page bailout proposal.



It's impossible to know why McCain chose this course, but it sure seems like more of a political stunt than a maverick moment.

Tagged as: mccain