...with his announcement that he's suspending his presidential campaign tomorrow and wants to postpone Friday's debate with Sen. Barack Obama so that he can help negotiate the bipartisan bailout of America's wrecked financial system. Oh, and he's called on Obama to put politics aside and join him. That's certainly a bold move. But why now?
This has not been a good couple of weeks for McCain, and today has been horrendous. The latest Washington Post/ABC News poll showed Obama with a clear lead over the senator from Arizona for the very first time. As if that weren't bad enough, a national poll from Fox News/Opinion Dynamics and battleground state polls from Marist appear to back up the contention that Obama is striking a chord with voters on the economy. This is giving him valuable momentum going into Friday's debate.
Then, as E.J. wrote about earlier, there was the front page New York Times story today contradicting McCain campaign assertions that the firm founded by campaign chief Rick Davis had had no dealings with Freddie Mac for three years. The story reports that Davis's firm, Davis Manafort, was paid $15,000 a month from the end of 2005 through last month.
By making such a startling announcement this afternoon, McCain has managed to most certainly change the subject -- for now.
Maybe he's putting "country first." But coming 41 days before the election and on a day of tough news for McCain, forgive me for thinking that there's more than a bit of self-interest here.
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