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Financial Crisis Muddies Presidential Debate

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By BILLY HOUSE and WILLIAM MARCH

The Tampa Tribune

Published: September 25, 2008

CLEARWATER - The nation's economic meltdown and the controversial bailout proposal shook up the presidential race Wednesday, as Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama sought to put their stamps on the solution to the crisis.

After Obama initiated an attempt to forge a consensus between the two candidates supporting a bailout bill, McCain, who has been losing ground on the economic issue and dropping in polls, responded with a more dramatic shakeup: He suspended his campaign and sought a delay in the first debate to work on the bailout bill.

Obama immediately rejected the proposal, saying that he will go to the debate.

McCain's surprise announcement thus raises the possibility that the first debate of the campaign, scheduled for Friday night, will include only one candidate - an unprecedented event, particularly significant in a campaign in which experts and political analysts say the debates will be unusually important.

The action in the presidential race came after Obama spoke to some 11,000 people at a rally in Dunedin's Knology Park.

Obama's Populist Stand

In the speech, Obama took a strongly populist tone on the economy, accusing McCain of adopting a similar tone only recently.

"The John McCain you've heard from over the last few days is a lot different from the John McCain who's been in Washington the last 26 years," he said. "He's been against the common sense rules and regulations that would have stopped this mess."

He said both the Bush administration and McCain have followed a "trickle-down" economic philosophy.

"We have had it for eight years, it has run the economy into the ground, and I am running for president because it is time to put the dreams of the American people back on track."

In a televised statement, McCain said he was making his dramatic move because, "We are running out of time" to prevent further damage to the economy.

McCain: Immediate Action Needed

He said unless Congress acts immediately, "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."

His move was immediately derided by critics, including Democrats, as a political ploy designed to reshape the race in which polls show voters trusting Obama more to handle the economy.

But McCain got an indication of support for his approach from President Bush, who on Wednesday night invited both candidates to Washington to discuss the economic meltdown and the bailout bill.

Obama quickly accepted.

Late Wednesday, the two issued a joint statement, as Obama had initially proposed Wednesday morning, supporting the bailout. But it included no details about what should be in the legislation.

It merely said the administration's proposal was "flawed," but that "the effort to protect the American economy must not fail."

Rejecting McCain's proposal to delay the debate, Obama said now "is exactly the time that the American people need to hear from the person who, in approximately 40 days, will be responsible for dealing with this mess."

Both candidates going to Washington would only "infuse Capitol Hill with presidential politics," he said.

Aides said Obama will be present if the Oxford, Miss., debate goes forward. Debate sponsor, the bipartisan Commission on Presidential Debates, said it will.

"My sense is there will be a stage, there will be a moderator, there will be an audience and there will be at least one presidential candidate," said Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs, when asked whether Obama, if necessary, will participate in the debate alone.

Obama had called McCain Wednesday morning seeking to have the two candidates issue a joint statement of support for passing a bailout bill.

He said he took the step to help resolve the impasse over the legislation in Congress, because he and McCain have agreed on at least some ideas concerning what should be in the bill.

Obama said the two agreed on the move when McCain called him back at 2:30 p.m. - just as he was finishing his rally in Dunedin.

But by the time his motorcade got back to the Belleview Biltmore in Clearwater, where Obama is staying for debate preparation, McCain had surprised him by making his own announcement without waiting for the joint statement to be finished.

During the phone call, Obama said, McCain "mentioned that ... he was going to fly to Washington and that he thought perhaps we should suspend the debate. I thought this was something that he was mulling over."

"When I got back to the hotel he had gone on television to announce what he had intended to do," he added.

But in his statement, McCain described it differently: "I have spoken to Senator Obama and informed him of my decision and have asked him to join me."

Obama declined to call McCain's move political maneuvering, telling reporters, "I think you should direct that question to Sen. McCain."

But he added: "Presidents are going to have to deal with more than one thing at a time. It's not necessary for us to think that we can only do one thing and suspend everything else."

He said the two could go to Washington to make their views known and still hold a debate.

"We've both got big planes, we've painted our slogans on the sides of them, they can get us from Washington to Mississippi fairly quickly."

The first debate of a presidential campaign usually is the most-watched. In this one, undecided voters will be trying to evaluate two historically unique presidential tickets - one with the nation's first black nominee, and one including the first woman on a Republican ticket.

Very Important Debates

"The race is so close, these could be the most important debates we've seen in several election cycles," said Allan Louden, a campaign rhetoric and political communications expert at Wake Forest University in Winston Salem, N.C.

Veteran political analyst Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia said the campaign's closing days will be decisive.

"More will happen in the next seven weeks than has occurred in the past seven months," he said in a recent analysis of the race. "The debates are sure to draw record audiences."

McCain's statement didn't directly say that he will decline to appear in the debate if it is held.

He said he is "directing my campaign to work with the Obama campaign and the Commission on Presidential Debates to delay Friday night's debate until we have taken action to address this crisis." He said that he will suspend campaign activities, including appearances and ads, until a bipartisan consensus on bailout legislation is reached.

A McCain campaign official, asking not to be named, said that without such a consensus, McCain will not appear.

In a meeting with reporters Wednesday afternoon, adviser Mark Salter said the debate could proceed "if we get this thing done by tomorrow night or Friday morning or Friday afternoon or something, OK."

Ross Baker, a Rutgers University political scientist, said McCain's surprise announcement was "clearly meant to take back the campaign's narrative from Obama," and that McCain's motive "is clearly political."

Congressional Democrats were even harsher, saying McCain and Obama would only be a distraction to the work on the legislation and accusing McCain, in the words of the House Financial Services Committee chairman, Barney Frank, D-Mass., of trying to "take credit for something that is happening without him."

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said in a statement the debate needn't be postponed. He spoke of the "risk of injecting presidential politics into this process."

But McCain campaign spokesman Brian Rogers said that Reid told reporters Tuesday that McCain, as incoming leader of his party, needed to take a stand on the issue. He said Reid was reversing his stance for partisan reasons.

And Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah said, "By gosh, if you want leadership, this is a perfect example of what John McCain is."

Reporter Billy House can be reached at (202) 662-7673 or bhouse@tampatrib.com. Reporter William March can be reached at wmarch@tamapatrib.com or (813) 259-7761

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