memeorandum: McCain Calls for Debate Delay to Focus on Financial Crisis (Washington Post)

7:05 PM ET, September 24, 2008

Top Items:

McCain: Scrap Friday Debate for Bailout; Obama: The Debate is On — ABC News' George Stephanopoulos and Rick Klein report: Republican presidential candidate John McCain on Wednesday said he would “suspend” his presidential campaign to come to Washington to help negotiate a financial bailout bill …

Discussion: Associated Press, Jonathan Martin's Blogs, TPM Election Central, Weekly Standard, Townhall.com, Gawker, Open Left, Firedoglake, The Campaign Spot, Donklephant, Agence France Presse, Right Wing News, Political Machine, The RBC, Taylor Marsh and The Anonymous Liberal

Ben Smith / Ben Smith's Blogs:

McCain's gambit — McCain suspends his campaign, and asks to postpone Friday's debate, to address the financial crisis. — Both candidates have been marginal players; McCain, though, seems to have the potential to make himself a major one, and his move is a mark, most of all, that he doesn't like the way this campaign is going.

Discussion: Washington Monthly, CNN, The Huffington Post, Reason, Power Line, Crooks and Liars, The Moderate Voice, The New Republic, The Mahablog, No More Mister Nice Blog, American Street and Comments from Left Field

Fox News:

McCain Suspends Campaign to Help With Bailout — John McCain will suspend his presidential campaign Thursday so that he can return to Washington to help negotiate a Wall Street bailout, and he is urging Barack Obama to do the same. — The Republican presidential candidate also asked …

Discussion: Michelle Malkin, MSNBC, The Moderate Voice, You Decide 2008, The Impolitic and Atlas Shrugs

Fox News:

FOX News Poll: Obama Reclaims Lead Over McCain, 45% to 39% — Barack Obama has recaptured the lead — 45 percent to 39 percent — over John McCain in the presidential race, according to a FOX News poll released Wednesday. — As majorities of each party's faithful back their party nominee …

Discussion: Gallup, Washington Post, The Moderate Voice, Marc Ambinder, Hot Air, Hotline On Call, Ace of Spades HQ and Oliver Willis

Drudge Report:

MCCAIN SUSPENDS CAMPAIGN TO FOCUS ON ECONOMY; WANTS DEBATE DELAY — MCCAIN: 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.

Discussion: The Opinionator, The New Republic, Townhall.com, Salon, Donklephant and TIME.com

Chris Cillizza / Washington Post:

Behind McCain's Decision to Suspend His Campaign — John McCain's decision to suspend his campaign comes as two new polls show him slipping in the head to head matchup against Barack Obama. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert) — Sen. John McCain's surprise announcement that he would temporarily suspend …

Discussion: Pajamas Media, Hullabaloo, BAGnewsNotes, Democratic Strategist, The Raw Story, AMERICAblog News, Outside The Beltway and Clive Crook

Washington Post:

McCain Calls for Debate Delay to Focus on Financial Crisis — NEW YORK — The financial crisis on Wall Street overwhelmed the 2008 presidential race today, as Republican presidential nominee John McCain this afternoon said he would suspend his presidential campaign tomorrow to return …

Discussion: Talking Points Memo, The Daily Dish and TPM Election Central

Joe Klein / Swampland:

Gimmicks ‘R’ Us — McCain suspends his campaign because of financial crisis? Oh please. Given today's poll numbers—even Fox has him dropping—it seems another Hail Mary (like the feckless selection of Palin) to try make McCain seem a statesman, which is difficult given the puerile tenor of his campaign's message operation.

Discussion: Talking Points Memo

Beth Fouhy / Associated Press:

McCain Asks To Postpone Friday Debate Due To Economic Crisis — NEW YORK — Republican John McCain said Wednesday he wants to delay Friday's debate with Democratic rival Barack Obama and temporarily put aside their partisan campaign to resolve the nation's financial crisis.

Discussion: The Huffington Post, The Nation and StephenBainbridge.com

Jonathan Martin / Jonathan Martin's Blogs:

McCain taking ads down — Aiming to prove how serious he is about addressing the financial crisis, John McCain has instructed his staff to take all his campaign commercials off the air, a spokesman tells Politico. — “As John McCain said, now is the time to put partisanship aside …

Discussion: Weekly Standard, The Washington Independent and Open Left

New York Times:
Obama Rebuffs McCain on Debate Delay

Discussion: Washington Post, Washington Monthly, The Caucus, Open Left and Truthdig

Jeremy Pelzer / politickerco.com:
As McCain suspends campaign, talking points on economic crisis stress bipartisanship

Discussion: Colorado Independent and Reason

Natalie Gewargis / Political Punch:
Reid to McCain: Don't Come Back to Capitol

Discussion: TIME.com, The Crypt's Blogs, Hot Air, Atlas Shrugs, The Strata-Sphere, Ace of Spades HQ and Jonathan Martin's Blogs

CNN:
McCain suspends campaign, Obama says he's continuing

Discussion: The New Republic, Althouse, Kevin Drum, Connecting.the.Dots and Colorado Independent

Think Progress:
Breaking: McCain Proposes Suspending Campaign To Focus On Financial Crisis (Updated)

Discussion: The Moderate Voice, AlterNet.org and The Politico

Allahpundit / Hot Air:
Breaking: McCain suspends campaign to deal with economy …

Discussion: The Politico, Political Radar, Patterico's Pontifications and MSNBC

Ben Smith / Ben Smith's Blogs:
Obama, McCain already working on joint statement

Discussion: Wonkette

Jonathan Martin / Jonathan Martin's Blogs:

Palin gets question, looks to McCain, demurs — This is what happens when campaigns let reporters into photo ops. They get all uppity and ask questions. — From the pool report account of what happened after McCain and Palin's meeting with Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvilli and Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko:

Discussion: Crooks and Liars, TPM Election Central and TBogg

Sam Stein / The Huffington Post:
Campbell Brown Rips McCain Camp's “Sexist” Treatment Of Palin

Discussion: Washington Monthly, Shakesville, BuzzFlash.org, The Reaction, Political Machine and Gateway Pundit

Steve Benen / Washington Monthly:
ASK A SILLY QUESTION.... John McCain and Sarah Palin met …

Discussion: Eunomia

Ben Smith / Ben Smith's Blogs:

Reid: McCain return ‘would not be helpful’ — Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, in a statement that would be unlikely to go out without the Obama campaign's approval, dismisses McCain's suspension:

Discussion: Weekly Standard and Wizbang

Sam Stein / The Huffington Post:
Obama And Democrats Call McCain's Bluff

Discussion: Oliver Willis

CFO.com: Today in Finance:
Reid Seeks McCain Pledge

Discussion: The Hill

Washington Wire:
McCain's Call to Cancel Debate Met with Resistance

Discussion: The Politico

Drudge Report:

EXCLUSIVE: LETTERMAN MOCKS MCCAIN CANCELLATION — David Letterman tells audience that McCain called him today to tell him he had to rush back to DC to deal with the economy. — Then in the middle of the taping Dave got word that McCain was, in fact just down the street being interviewed by Katie Couric.

Discussion: TVNewser and Lawyers, Guns and Money

Ben Smith / Ben Smith's Blogs:

A non-emergency meeting — The McCain campaign's new urgency about the financial crisis didn't entirely clear his schedule this morning. — My colleague Amie Parnes reports that he made it to his scheduled morning meeting with Lady Lynn de Rothschild, a Clinton backer who recently came out in support of him.

Discussion: Talking Points Memo, Matthew Yglesias, Spin Cycle, The Daily Dish and Oliver Willis

Kathryn Jean Lopez / The Corner:

The Debate Debate — Obama is on TV right now. — Some of this is a lot of nonsense, but if I'm just getting home from work and I only pay casual attention to these debates, Obama sounds reasonable and less gimmicky than McCain. — He says that there is no reason why we can't do more than one thing at once.

Discussion: The New Republic and Kevin Drum

Ben Smith / Ben Smith's Blogs:
Obama responds: ‘Exactly the time’ for a debate

Discussion: The New Republic and NDN Blog

Janet Hook / Los Angeles Times:

Times poll shows Barack Obama has slight lead over John McCain — Obama leads McCain 49%-45% in survey of likely voters that has a margin of error of 3 percentage points. Economic woes, independents play big factors in close race. — WASHINGTON — The crisis in the financial markets …

Discussion: Real Clear Politics and Top of the Ticket

Chris Cillizza / Washington Post:
McCain Campaign Disputes Post Poll

Discussion: The Caucus, The Moderate Voice, Salon, Power Line, The Numbers, Wizbang, TPM Election Central, Right Wing News, Political Machine and Comments from Left Field

Michael Goldfarb / JohnMcCain.com:

A Partisan Paper of Record — Today the New York Times launched its latest attack on this campaign in its capacity as an Obama advocacy organization. Let us be clear about what this story alleges: The New York Times charges that McCain-Palin 2008 campaign manager Rick Davis was paid …

Discussion: Ben Smith's Blogs, protein wisdom, Lynn Sweet, Firedoglake, Washington Wire, American Spectator, You Decide 2008, TPMMuckraker, Marc Ambinder, The Huffington Post and culturekitchen

Martina Stewart / CNN:

Florida congressman points to Palin to rally Jews to Obama — (CNN) - Rep. Alcee Hastings told an audience of Jewish Democrats Wednesday that they should be wary of Republican VP nominee Sarah Palin because “anybody toting guns and stripping moose don't care too much about what they do with Jews and blacks.”

Discussion: Hot Air, Gateway Pundit and Wizbang

University of Chicago GSB Faculty Redirect Page:

To the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President pro tempore of the Senate: — As economists, we want to express to Congress our great concern for the plan proposed by Treasury Secretary Paulson to deal with the financial crisis. We are well aware of the difficulty …

Discussion: Washington Wire, Threat Level, Freakonomics and Portfolio

Scott Keeter / PewResearch.org:

Cell Phones and the 2008 Vote: An Update — Current polling in the 2008 presidential election shows a very tight race between Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain. In part because of the strong support Obama is attracting among younger voters, and as the number of Americans …

Discussion: Pollster.com, Scholars and Rogues and Hot Air

Josh Marshall / Talking Points Memo:

BE HONEST — Let's state outright a few obvious points. Bringing the presidential candidates and their press entourages back to Capitol Hill won't speed or improve the process of coming up with a good bailout deal. It will politicize it. That's so transparently obvious that it barely requires stating.

Discussion: Washington Monthly