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McCain suspends campaign; candidates head to Washington

BY TOM BRUNE | tom.brune@newsday.com

September 25, 2008

The race for the White House was thrown into turmoil yesterday after John McCain suddenly suspended his campaign and called for a delay in tomorrow's presidential debate to work on a Wall Street bailout, a move quickly rejected by Barack Obama.

McCain and Obama have agreed to return to Washington today to meet congressional leaders at the White House at the invitation of President George W. Bush to discuss the bailout plan, which has run into opposition from both sides.

Last night, McCain and Obama also issued a joint statement saying they would "rise above politics for the good of the country" to address the economic crisis.

But their backers were divided sharply on the political implications of McCain's surprise move, which caught the country, as well as Obama and his campaign, off guard.

McCain made the move in a stunning announcement on television just before 3 p.m., upstaging Obama, who moments earlier in a private phone conversation had urged McCain to issue the joint statement on the financial crisis. "It is time for both parties to come together to solve this problem," McCain said.

But Obama, in Clearwater, Fla., said presidents must deal with more than one thing at a time, and added, "This is exactly the time when people need to hear from the candidates."

The impact on the presidential race, in which the shaky economy has helped Obama build a small lead in polls over McCain, remains to be seen. The fate of the foreign policy debate in Oxford, Miss., the first of three presidential debates, remained uncertain last night.

The Presidential Debate Commission said the debate is still on. And yesterday afternoon, Obama said, "What I'm planning to do now is debate on Friday."

The McCain campaign did not respond to a query about his plans last night.

The fast-moving day yesterday ended with reports of progress in congressional negotiations on the proposed $700-billion financial fix and an evening address by President George W. Bush to the country on the stakes in resolving the financial crisis.

McCain made his move as an ABC- Washington Post poll showed him down 9 percentage points to Obama, trailing 52 percent to 43 percent, a result a McCain pollster decried as an "outlier" that does not track with other polls showing a tight race.

It was the second major shock McCain has injected into the race. The first came just last month when he named the then-little-known Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate.

A key McCain ally, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), defended McCain's action, a position taken by many Republicans and the White House.

"We need a solution to this financial crisis more than we need to have a foreign policy debate," Graham said. "This idea that this is a political move to benefit one person or another is crazy."

But Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) asked why McCain was absent for the past week of congressional consideration of the legislation and accused him of "a very strange political stunt" and of "trying to seek political advantage."

Obama had placed a call to McCain at 8:30 a.m. yesterday seeking a joint statement on their shared concerns about the bailout plan, but he did not reach McCain. McCain's aides said later the purpose of the call was not conveyed.

At 2:30 p.m., McCain called Obama and they talked. Obama's aides said McCain "agreed to join him in issuing such a statement." But McCain's aides said McCain asked Obama "to join him in returning to Washington to lead a bipartisan effort to solve this problem."

Obama said he thought McCain would not announce the move until after he and McCain had issued the joint statement.