JOHN MCCAIN Shows Leadership, Suspends Campaign to Help With Bailout

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by FOXNews.com
Wednesday, September 24, 2008

John McCain announced that he will suspend his presidential campaign on Thursday to return to Washington to help with Wall Street bailout negotiations. He urged his opponent Barack Obama to do the same.

The Arizona senator also asked the Presidential Debate Commission to postpone Friday’s scheduled debate with Obama so that he can work on the financial crisis bailout plan now on Capitol Hill.

“America this week faces an historic crisis in our financial system. We must pass legislation to address this crisis. If we do not, credit will dry up, with devastating consequences for our economy.
People will no longer be able to buy homes and their life savings will be at stake. Businesses will not have enough money to pay their employees. If we do not act, ever corner of our country will be impacted. We cannot allow this to happen,” McCain said in remarks to reporters from New York.

McCain said he will leave the campaign trail after delivering an address to former President Clinton’s Global Initiative on Thursday morning. He canceled a Wednesday afternoon taping of The Late Show With David Letterman show and a Thursday interview with FOX News.

McCain’s move suggests he’s serious about dealing with the bailout since he had negotiated strongly to make the first of the three debates between the candidates on foreign policy, McCain’s strong suit. The first debate had been set for Friday at the University of Mississippi in Oxford.

However, McCain has fallen in recent polls — largely attributable to the economic crisis — and the move immediately was viewed by rival political analysts as opportunistic and a chance to stem the free fall. The latest FOX News/Opinion Dynamics poll shows Obama has taken a 45-39 percent lead over McCain, in large part because of independent voters. A Washington Post poll also showed that most voters think Obama has a better approach to dealing with the economy than McCain.

Within minutes of McCain’s statement, Obama’s campaign issued its own statement suggesting that the idea to work together came from that camp.

“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,” spokesman Bill Burton said.

“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,” Burton continued.

McCain adviser Nancy Pfotenhauer said that McCain is just following his belief in putting the country first. She noted that he suspended the Republican National Convention when Hurricane Gustav hit the Gulf Coast and in defending the troop surge has said that he would rather win the war than win an election.

“We all watched the (Senate) hearings yesterday. … The bottom line is he did not think we would reach a conclusion and it’s absolutely imperative that we do so. This is vintage John McCain. He is going to put the country first and suspend the campaign,” she told FOX News.

In his remarks to reporters, McCain said he did not think the Bush administration’s $700 billion bailout plan, being shepherded by Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, adequately addresses the crisis at hand.

“It has become clear that no consensus has developed to support the administration’s proposal. I do not believe that the plan on the table will pass as it currently stands, and we are running out of time,” he said.

In announcing McCain’s expected return, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said Republicans want to see included in the president’s bill limited executive compensation, debt reduction, congressional oversight taxpayer protections.

McCain announced his decision shortly after the White House said President Bush will deliver an address to the nation Wednesday night. McCain called on Bush to convene a meeting of congressional leadership, in both chambers and parties, including him and Obama.

“It is time for both parties to come together to solve this problem,” he said.

“I am confident that before the markets open on Monday we can achieve consensus on legislation that will stabilize our financial markets, protect taxpayers and homeowners, and earn the confidence of the American people. All we must do to achieve this is temporarily set politics aside, and I am committed to doing so.”

“Obviously we appreciate the seriousness Senator McCain and other leaders — Senator Obama as well — are taking to this issue,” said deputy White House spokesman Tony Fratto said of McCain’s move.

While McCain’s decision appears to put partisanship aside, both campaigns have used considerable energy casting the other as not definitive or aggressive enough on the financial rescue and other reforms.

Earlier in the day, Obama said McCain had been absent on the issue a year ago when the Illinois Democrat introduced Senate legislation to restrict executive compensation.

McCain is suddenly talking like “a hard-charging populist,” Obama said, even though Obama claims McCain’s policies favor the rich.

The McCain campaign responded that Obama incorrectly claimed that he “‘blew the whistle’ on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac CEOs for their golden parachutes, when he actually hired one for a critical job in his campaign and reportedly had his campaign seeking policy advice from another.

“The truth is that while John McCain sounded the alarm on the need to reform Freddie and Fannie to protect American taxpayers, Barack Obama took record amounts of their money and refused to take action to reform and regulate them. If ‘lying’ is saying you did one thing when you actually did the opposite, then Barack Obama just lied,” said McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds.