Politics

McCain Shows Up

By Matt Cooper

It's about as surprising as Clay Aiken's declaration that he's gay. John McCain says he'll show up in Mississippi tonight for the first presidential debate with Barack Obama. His sidekick, Senator Lindsey Graham, had been hinting that McCain would in fact be there. Originally, McCain said he'd punt until a bailout plan was passed. Now, just the whiff of a plan is apparently enough for him to go back on his previous statement.

So first McCain went to D.C. because of this emergency, and he seems to have contributed nothing to the deal that doesn't exist yet. Now he's back on the campaign trail although it was clear that the work of McCain offices around the country continued.

Hard to believe that this debate, supposedly devoted to foreign policy, was once considered the high-water mark of the McCain fall campaign. Now, who knows if it'll even be about foreign policy. And will McCain do anything to right him self after an awful week?

Matt Cooper

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Full post as published by Portfolio.com: Capital on September 26, 2008 (boomark / email).