DEMOCRATS heaped scorn on John McCain’s shock decision on Wednesday to suspend his presidential campaign and return to Washington to tackle the nation’s financial crisis. The Republican nominee’s move was dismissed as a “stunt”, an act of desperation by a flailing candidate heading for inevitable defeat in November.
But as with the equally unexpected selection of Alaskan “hockey mom” Sarah Palin as Republican vice-presidential candidate, the Democrats’ denunciations betray a sense of unease, if not panicky fear. By jumping feet-first into the middle of Congressional negotiations on George W. Bush’s $700 billion Wall Street bailout plan, McCain, who counts impetuosity as a virtue, had pulled another fast one. Once again, his opponents didn’t see it coming. Whatever the longer-term verdict may be, for the moment at least the Democrats are suddenly on the back foot. Just when Barack Obama appeared to be establishing a clear national poll lead based on greater public confidence in his ability to manage the economy, McCain, the former fighter pilot, dive-bombed out of nowhere and blew the ground from under him. It was nothing less than an audacious bid to claim the mantle of national savior for himself. The maverick rides again.
In public statements McCain suggested his decision was a statesman-like one, prompted by discussions with Republican congressional leaders on Wednesday morning during which they told him the bailout plan lacked sufficient support. As the Republicans tell it, by calling a halt to campaigning and seeking a postponement of today’s presidential debate, McCain acted selflessly in the national interest.
THEY plainly hope McCain’s bombshell will underscore his principal appeal to voters as an experienced, seasoned leader who, rising above the fray, can make Washington work.
“This is the greatest single act of responsibility ever taken by a presidential candidate,” said former Republican House speaker, Newt Gingrich, standard-bearer of another, mostly forgotten 1990s “revolution” to change the way Washington works. “This is the day the McCain-reform Republican party began to truly emerge as a movement which puts the country first, solutions first, and big change first.” The conservative Washington Times commented: “Democrats had dared McCain to show leadership and he stepped up.”
Veteran Republican strategist Ed Rollins was more circumspect. He said only the people’s verdict on Nov. 4 would reveal whether McCain’s gamble had paid off. The respected political columnist David Broder suggested meanwhile that a failure to take primary responsibility for the allegedly necessary but deeply unpopular Wall Street bailout by both Bush and the Democratic leadership in Congress had given McCain an opening.
“In the greatest crisis to confront the American economic system in three-quarters of a century, it is notable that the leaders of the two elected branches of the federal government have not been calling the signals. George Bush, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid (the Democratic leaders of the House and Senate respectively) have stepped back to permit deputies ... to take the lead in figuring out a solution,” Broder wrote in the Washington Post. The risks for McCain are considerable. Any bailout package, even if it contains provisions preventing benefits accruing to the fabled greedy “fat cats” of the banking world, will have dubious appeal to an economically strapped electorate. The public’s ambivalence, bordering on outright hostility, was partly why Bush used such draconian language in his national television address on Wednesday night. Bush’s warnings about the possible “devastation” of the “overall economy”, not just the banking sector, and of a “long and painful recession” was a vintage exposition of the politics of fear, in which he has few equals. But voters don’t like being scared and bullied, and they don’t like this president, and on this issue as with others, McCain may be tarred with Bush’s clumsy brush.
But Obama is in unexpected difficulty, too, following his opponent’s demarche. For a moment or two on Wednesday, he was left sitting at his “debate camp” headquarters in Florida, looking hesitant, sidelined, and off-the-pace. Bush’s subsequent invitation to him to join today’s White House bailout summit forced him to reverse his earlier refusal to follow McCain back to Washington.
Obama’s continuing insistence that today’s debate on foreign policy should go ahead on time looks problematic, too. He is doubtless right to say such weighty issues need discussing in a public forum. But borrowing, not Baghdad, is the focus for most Americans right now. Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad may be scary. But far scarier is the fact that General Motors has run out of credit and 592,000 jobs were lost in August alone.
In making his dramatic move, McCain has once again disrupted the national election narrative so carefully nurtured by the Democrats since Obama’s Iowa caucus victory. He did it at an earlier stage in the campaign, by shamelessly appropriating Obama’s theme of change and reform. He did it again by picking Palin as his running mate, a choice both preposterous and potent. Now he has dared to put himself forward as Americans’ economic champion. If the bailout is agreed and seen to work — a big “if” — McCain will claim the credit and possibly the election.
It quite takes one’s breath away. But then, so does this whole extraordinary campaign.
