McCain's gamble

McCain's decision to suspend his campaign and jet into Washington to try to negotiate a compromise bailout plan is a risky gamble. Sure, it's a gimmick. What a shock! A politician running for the presidency to try gimmicks. Every action they take these days are gimmicks.

The risk is that he will either succeed or not succeed in negotiating a compromise bailout. If he does, he will then be forever linked to the success or failure of the plan. He'll be in the position of negotiating something with the Democrats and then trying to convince conservatives in Congress to go along with something they're feeling quite queasy about doing. Quite a few conservative voices have come out against the Paulson plan, and whatever deal that is finally worked out will basically be along the Paulson proposal. And if there is no deal and it drags along inconclusively, he'll be shown up as unable to negotiate the type of comprehensive plan that he's come up with in the past for immigration and campaign finance reform that angered conservatives.

And then there is the back and forth with Senator Obama. I found Obama's response was rather weak. He stressed that the American people expect a president to be able to multitask and so there was no need for him to suspend his campaign. Well, yeah, but that would involve multitasking between issues like the financial collapse, Iran, Russia, appropriations bills, and energy policy. The American people aren't looking for their president to multitask by dealing with the largest financial crisis in a generation and campaigning. When Obama says that the American people need even more to hear from the candidates and that is why he wants the debate to go forward, the question I had was why he then ducked out on having a series of townhall debates with McCain all summer long.

And then Obama stressed that he is on the phone every day with Congressional leaders, Paulson, and financial advisers. And if they needed him, he'd be willing to fly in. But otherwise, his campaigning takes precedence. He's now the leader of his party and posed to move into the Oval Office. And he doesn't think he should be in on these negotiations that he'd have to live with if he gets elected?

For almost eight years, the Democrats have criticized President Bush for taking a vacation in Crawford and pretended that the president can't run the White House from Texas. But now Obama says it's more important for him to be doing debate prep than for him to be leading his party to accomplish the job he's actually been elected to do in the Senate.

He seemed more concerned that he and McCain issued their joint statement and told us that their staff had been working on it all day. And this is what they labored and brought forth.

"The American people are facing a moment of economic crisis. No matter how this began, we all have a responsibility to work through it and restore confidence in our economy. The jobs, savings, and prosperity of the American people are at stake.

"Now is a time to come together — Democrats and Republicans — in a spirit of cooperation for the sake of the American people. The plan that has been submitted to Congress by the Bush Administration is flawed, but the effort to protect the American economy must not fail.

"This is a time to rise above politics for the good of the country. We cannot risk an economic catastrophe. Now is our chance to come together to prove that Washington is once again capable of leading this country."

This took their staff hours to put together and was so important that Obama thought it was the most important task to get done to reassure the American people and more important than taking a hand in crafting the final bill? How typical that Obama's stress is on the words rather than the deeds.

I don't buy the Democratic spin that McCain is trying to duck out on the debates. After all, he's the one who wanted to have a whole series of debates. And everyone has been talking about how the debates are the last game-changing moment in the campaign. With the polls trending away from McCain, wouldn't he want the debates to go on as soon as possible in order to change the conversation from Obama's higher numbers?

It may well be that, as the Hill reports, the deal is already close to being agreed upon. So McCain will be flying in at the last minute to show up at the press conference. And if this was so very crucial that it demanded his personal presence, why did McCain spend a week and a half flailing around before deciding that he needed to be there?

Now that Bush has invited both candidates to the White House and the Democrats seem ready to make a deal, Obama has backed down and agreed to show up. So some of the back and forth from yesterday afternoon is moot. Perhaps they'll come up with their big compromise deal tomorrow and the debate can go on as scheduled. That would be optimal for both the markets and for the political situation. Or while they're both together in Washington, they could hold the debate there.

And those Democrats who are criticizing McCain for playing politics with his whole dramatic suspension of the campaign and flight into Washington, they should look to their own party. Harry Reid has been typically dishonest. A couple of days ago Harry Reid was out there saying that they needed to know where McCain stood on the bailout and demanding that any compromise bill would have McCain support. But now that he heard from the Obama campaign that Obama wasn't planning to come back, Reid suddenly announced that he didn't need to have the candidate insert presidential politics into the negotiations that a day ago he thought was impossible to conclude without McCain support. As John McCormack says,

So Harry Reid says that it's essential that John McCain backs legislation designed to avert the greatest economic meltdown since the Great Depression. And when McCain says the legislation, in its current form, is not good enough, Reid tells McCain to stay away from Capitol Hill. Who's playing politics with economic crisis?

John McCain did succeed in getting the conversation changed with his bold gamble. But it is indeed a risk for him. No one really knows now how the compromise bailout will work out financially and politically. As Charles Krauthammer said last night on Brit Hume's show, how too many Hail Mary passes can John McCain throw? Backing the surge, picking Palin, and postponing the opening of the GOP convention were all risks that McCain took. This might be one too many.