McCain Calls a Time Out

It's old news now that John McCain has "suspended" his campaign for the Presidency in order to focus on the economic crisis. He claims that he will not attend the scheduled debate on Friday (that's tomorrow, for those of you keeping track) unless Congress reaches a decision on the proposed $700 billion bailout plan that the Bush Administration has put forth in a desperate bid to keep Wall Street going. Similarly, it's also old news that this suspension, like the bailout, is total bullshit.

Let's ignore for the moment that the University of Mississippi, the scheduled host of the first debate between McCain and Obama, has already spent millions of dollars in preparations, because clearly the right move in an economic disaster is to force more people to waste more money. Let's also ignore the fact that the election is on November 4th, a puny forty days away, and the nation has yet to hear the candidates actually speak on the issues in a forum where the other viewpoint will also be represented. Who cares if the next leader of our nation can provide substantive answers to difficult questions, or if he can defend his policies intelligently in the face of criticism? Forget about it.

Instead, let's focus on McCain's claim that he's suspending his campaign. Maybe I'm taking things out of context. Why don't we go directly to his statement from yesterday:

"Tomorrow morning, I will suspend my campaign and return to Washington after speaking at the Clinton Global Initiative."

Okay, that's pretty unambiguous. Just one last little bit of campaigning because, hey, he's already there, and then he's putting this whole thing on ice. But what could he really mean by that? Do you think it means that all the hard working men and women at the McCain Campaign HQ filed out of their offices, leaving the last unpaid intern to shut off the lights and lock the doors? That anyone caught wearing a McCain/Palin button or waving a sign between now and the resolution of the proposed bailout would be risking the awesome wrath of the Original Maverick?

Of course not. He hasn't stopped campaigning for a second. We've seen this before. If I may crib from Al Franken's excellent book Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them (and I hope that I may, because I plan on doing it a lot), Republican then-candidate for Senate Norm Coleman pulled this exact tactic after a tragic plane crash killed his opponent, Paul Wellstone. Coleman said that he was suspending his campaign until after Wellstone's funeral. He then proceeded to appear on This Week and held a "non-press-conference press conference." In other words, he did exactly what a campaigning candidate would do, but by being sure to repeat that he was not campaigning, and by using clever turns of phrase (assuming you consider "non-press-conference press conference" clever), he was able to keep his campaign going. I mean, sure, he met with the press, and sure, he gave a statement, and sure, he took questions from reporters who, I'm told, are members of the press, but it wasn't a press conference. It may have looked like a press conference to the untrained eye; to a layperson who happened to be wandering by it might have been eerily reminiscent of a press conference, but it really wasn't. That would have been disrespectful.

John McCain is engaging in some Coleman-esque "non-campaigning campaigning." He's trying to take the high ground, to show that he's more interested in finding a solution that will help the American people, unlike his opponent, who is only interested in being on camera. McCain said, we have to "set politics aside, and I am commited to doing so." But make no mistake, this was a political move. That's why his very next sentence began with the words, "Following September 11th."

McCain had so much to gain by "suspending" his campaign and postponing the debate. If Obama refused to play along, then the Republicans could spin it as Obama caring more about winning a debate than about actually helping the American people. McCain, meanwhile, would look like the guy who cared so damn much about solving this financial crisis and helping average Americans like you and me that he'd give up his own Presidential campaign to do it. And this guy's wanted to be President for, like, eighty years! Can you imagine how much he must want to help America if he'd give that up to do it? What a maverick!

Of course, it doesn't hurt that postponing the debate would give McCain more time to prepare to face off against Obama, who is unquestionably the more natural and inspiring pubilc speaker of the two. Plus, if the Presidential debate was being delayed, it would only be sensible to push back the Vice Presidential debate as well, which would give Sarah Palin some much needed time to shape herself into a halfway competent political orator. God knows that after her disasterous interview with Katie Couric, her handlers are probably desperate for whatever extra time they can grab in order to force-feed her at least some basic factual knowledge of her own running mate, if not actual policy information.

And if Obama relented? If he said, "You know what, John, that's a great idea! Let's put this whole 'election' dealie on hold for a while" and agreed to postpone the debate? Well, then McCain's people might not be able to paint Obama as an elitist with no concern for the common people, but they'd still get that precious extra prep time, plus they could go to the press singing the praises of John McCain and how his take-charge style was so visionary that even Barack Obama fell in line. But of course, that wouldn't be campaigning.

So suspending the campaign was a pretty smart move for the McCain camp. No matter how Obama and his people responded, the Republicans could use it to their advantage. Right?

Obama's camp deserves massive, king-size kudos for responding the way they have. They didn't get flummoxed by this cheap move. They've stayed on message, and that message has been, "You know what, John, you're right. We do need to focus on the economy. So, since one of us is going to be inheriting this problem as President, considering that we both know that this bailout isn't going to miraculously cure all of the nation's economic problems, why don't we let the American people hear our plans?"

Obama has made it clear that he feels more than capable of doing his Congressional duty in the Senate and still making it to the debate on time. The rest of the Senate has backed him on this, even giving Obama and McCain the green light to skip the vote on the bailout in order to focus on the Presidential race. And Obama's camp has lovingly pointed out that the President often has to deal with multiple issues at once. Take a look at our current President. The economy, the environment, Iraq, Afghanistan - he has to botch them all at once!

Will we see a debate between Obama and McCain tomorrow night? We'll have to wait and see. But right now Obama needs to keep hammering at McCain with reminders that the President can't just call a time-out on every other issue in order to focus on one. Whoever wins this election will be taking the reins of our country at a pivotal and exceedingly difficult moment. We need someone who will be able to step in and tackle multiple issues both at home and abroad without slowing down, without giving up, and without having a heart attack. If Senator McCain doesn't participate in this debate, he will be telling the voters that he is simply not up to the task.