I guess the consensus is that McCain is making a not very smart bet with this $700B move. I’ll just note that, whatever else it is, his decision to “suspend” his campaign and rush to the sort of rescue is a genuine reflection of McCain’s temperament and as good an indicator as any of what kind of president he’d be: impulsive, active, involved, somewhat immune to advice.
The McCain team thinks these traits are a net positive. And they’ve pretty much placed his candidacy on the line because of that belief. I’m told that the campaign has “made our decision” about the debate, and that the only way McCain will be on that stage is if a resolution is reached. Of course, there’s a lot of wiggle room in that statement — he could leave once an agreement has been reached but nothing passed, for instance — much as there is a lot of wiggle room in the definition of “suspending” one’s campaign. The decision to have Palin hold her first avail ever today of all days is either brilliantly cynical or (in my opinion more likely) a sign of how little coordination there is this completely candidate-led campaign. As one senior aide put it recently: “It wouldn’t be a McCain campaign if knew what we were doing.”