First the McCain campaign mined the Gustav opportunity tragedy to keep the unpopular Bush from raining on their national convention parade. Now, they’re leveraging the country’s financial crisis to postpone a foreign policy debate that McCain reportedly hasn’t spent much quality time boning up for. Oh, and there’s that other reason: To short-circuit and steal Barack Obama’s quiet efforts at bipartisanship and leadership. The AP reports:
The Obama campaign said Obama had called McCain around 8:30 a.m. Wednesday to propose that they issue a joint statement in support of a package to help fix the economy as soon as possible. McCain called back six hours later and agreed to the idea of the statement, the Obama campaign said. McCain’s statement was issued to the media a few minutes later.
“We must meet as Americans, not as Democrats or Republicans, and we must meet until this crisis is resolved,” McCain said. “I am confident that before the markets open on Monday we can achieve consensus on legislation that will stabilize our financial markets, protect taxpayers and homeowners, and earn the confidence of the American people. All we must do to achieve this is temporarily set politics aside, and I am committed to doing so.”
