Breaking News – McCain will debate tonight

Republican John McCain announced that he will debate, but in his statement confirming his attendance blasted Democrats and bemoaned Washington politics:

"John McCain’s decision to suspend his campaign was made in the hopes that politics could be set aside to address our economic crisis.

"In response, Americans saw a familiar spectacle in Washington. At a moment of crisis that threatened the economic security of American families, Washington played the blame game rather than work together to find a solution that would avert a collapse of financial markets without squandering hundreds of billions of taxpayers’ money to bailout bankers and brokers who bet their fortunes on unsafe lending practices.

"Both parties in both houses of Congress and the administration needed to come together to find a solution that would deserve the trust of the American people. And while there were attempts to do that, much of yesterday was spent fighting over who would get the credit for a deal and who would get the blame for failure. There was no deal or offer yesterday that had a majority of support in Congress. There was no deal yesterday that included adequate protections for the taxpayers. It is not enough to cut deals behind closed doors and then try to force it on the rest of Congress -- especially when it amounts to thousands of dollars for every American family.

"The difference between Barack Obama and John McCain was apparent during the White House meeting yesterday where Barack Obama’s priority was political posturing in his opening monologue defending the package as it stands. John McCain listened to all sides so he could help focus the debate on finding a bipartisan resolution that is in the interest of taxpayers and homeowners. The Democratic interests stood together in opposition to an agreement that would accommodate additional taxpayer protections.

"Senator McCain has spent the morning talking to members of the Administration, members of the Senate, and members of the House. He is optimistic that there has been significant progress toward a bipartisan agreement now that there is a framework for all parties to be represented in negotiations, including Representative Blunt as a designated negotiator for House Republicans. The McCain campaign is resuming all activities and the Senator will travel to the debate this afternoon. Following the debate, he will return to Washington to ensure that all voices and interests are represented in the final agreement, especially those of taxpayers and homeowners."

flywallyfly wrote:

Is McCain gonna show up for the debate? Depends.....

Hehehehe

As long as this is at the podium

http://images.inmagine.com/168nwm/creatas/cr15609/cr1560934.jpg

He'll be good to go

JSBE wrote:

Republican John McCain announced that he will debate, but in his statement confirming his attendance blasted Democrats and bemoaned Washington politics:

"John McCain’s decision to suspend his campaign was made in the hopes that politics could be set aside to address our economic crisis.

"In response, Americans saw a familiar spectacle in Washington. At a moment of crisis that threatened the economic security of American families, Washington played the blame game rather than work together to find a solution that would avert a collapse of financial markets without squandering hundreds of billions of taxpayers’ money to bailout bankers and brokers who bet their fortunes on unsafe lending practices.

"Both parties in both houses of Congress and the administration needed to come together to find a solution that would deserve the trust of the American people. And while there were attempts to do that, much of yesterday was spent fighting over who would get the credit for a deal and who would get the blame for failure. There was no deal or offer yesterday that had a majority of support in Congress. There was no deal yesterday that included adequate protections for the taxpayers. It is not enough to cut deals behind closed doors and then try to force it on the rest of Congress -- especially when it amounts to thousands of dollars for every American family.

"The difference between Barack Obama and John McCain was apparent during the White House meeting yesterday where Barack Obama’s priority was political posturing in his opening monologue defending the package as it stands. John McCain listened to all sides so he could help focus the debate on finding a bipartisan resolution that is in the interest of taxpayers and homeowners. The Democratic interests stood together in opposition to an agreement that would accommodate additional taxpayer protections.

"Senator McCain has spent the morning talking to members of the Administration, members of the Senate, and members of the House. He is optimistic that there has been significant progress toward a bipartisan agreement now that there is a framework for all parties to be represented in negotiations, including Representative Blunt as a designated negotiator for House Republicans. The McCain campaign is resuming all activities and the Senator will travel to the debate this afternoon. Following the debate, he will return to Washington to ensure that all voices and interests are represented in the final agreement, especially those of taxpayers and homeowners."

Wow!!
I'm speechless

This guy is too much

I honestly don't understand why 2 hours of answering questions mostly on this issue would somehow shutdown the government.

It was pretty dumb to say... let's suspend the debate in the first place.

By now, as a presidential canidate you should be so good at answering questions an hour worth of debate won't throw off your focus. If he's going to be president he's going to have days like this.... a lot of them.

mammasan wrote:

I will tune in but I'm not getting my hopes up that this debate will be different than any other.

I heard Bob Scheaffer last night (who is moderating the 3rd debate) ... he stated, they are going to a "10 minute conversation" style of debate ... where each topic (there are 9) has 10 minutes and candidates are encouraged to ask each other questions ... not sure how it'll play out ...

no doubt, this will turn into a "Gotcha" contest ... but, we'll see, I think that is an improvement.

StrangestTribe27 wrote:

I think it was a mature step for McCain to say he was putting the debate on hold to take a look at the economy. Let's be honest, when all is said and done our economy is more important then the debate right now. However, there is no way he was not going to show up.

my points are two fold ...

One, why not last week? Why not suspend the campaign LAST week? Why wait 'til the 11th hour, THEN do this?

Two, did he really need to make the issue about not going to the debate? Why make a public display about it?

Again, the ploy was not "country first" ...

StrangestTribe27 wrote:

I think it was a mature step for McCain to say he was putting the debate on hold to take a look at the economy. Let's be honest, when all is said and done our economy is more important then the debate right now. However, there is no way he was not going to show up.

It's a bit of a copout though really. The guy wanted to debate more just a few weeks ago.... so debate. Tell the American public why they have to bail these losers out to the tune of 700 billion and nationalize the economy. The republicans are the party of small government right? Well, this ain't small government... explain to me why we "need" this bailout. Honestly, his being in the discussion along with Barack Obama when they have been awol the entire year while campaigning doesn't amount to a hill of beans. This is him trying to capitalize on the situation and say... look see I care about the economy... look at me doing the right thing while my opponent wants to have a frivolous debate... Everything about this is calculated and political. Neither one of them would not show up for a TV appearence.

I don't know that anyone can say they vote for republicans because they are economic conservatives and not feel like they have egg all over thier faces. Yes it's a multifacited issue that lots of people are responsible for, but the republicans have been in control for 8 years.... if McCain wants this job... he's got some splaining to do... Obama will get the benifit of the doubt because his party hasn't been in the White House the last 8 years... thems the breaks.

I kind of wish he would have stuck to his guns. Guess he didn't want to give Obama 90 minutes of free airtime.

Ah well.

mammasan wrote:

I think things where not going according to plan. I believe that McCain thought that there would be a proposal by Thursday or Friday morning at the latest and he could go the debate and claim that he helped broker the deal. Also most polls showed that Americans wanted a debate. When a proposal was not agreed upon he really had to choices stay in DC or go to the debate. I don't think he ever intended to miss the debate so he had to back off his initial pledge. It was a risky move and had it worked it would have been nothing short of genius.

See, I think he made a calculated risk that Obama was not going to stand up to him on this issue. Obama has had a problem this election cycle with being seen as an arrogant, elitist celebrity who puts his own campaign above country. McCain probably thought, when he made his big statement, that Obama would politically look at the situation and say that he could not let the debate still happen because he would be accused of putting his campaign over a crisis. He thought Obama would chicken out and agree to have the debate postponed, and then McCain would look like the natural leader whom Obama deferred to. It was risky, and unfortunately for McCain Obama called BS, and never stepped down from keeping the debate.

mammasan wrote:

Mike Huckabee has come out now and said that McCain made a huge mistake.

I just believe McCain, or McCain's campaign, thinks Obama is both completely and entirely politically-driven and that he is a chicken, for lack of a better word, and I think it was probably inconceivable to them that Obama would push to have the debate continue if there was a risk of him looking arrogant or uncaring. But Obama did push for it, and McCain's left with no deal and a move to Washington that now looks extremely political, continuing he has reneged on his promise to remain there until a deal is seen through. He didn't think Obama would dispute him in the first place.