Yet THIS election WAS going to be cakewalk to the democrats, they shot them selves in the foot again, and again, and again. And then they set their foot on fire.

Maybe in your opinion or the opinion of some spin doctors. There are a lot of voters, in particular independents, who don't want either party controlling everything so many believe it goes much further than shooting oneself in the foot. Seems to me there are shots fired on both sides on a daily basis.

This has been a very dark day for the republicans indeed. They're already giving several examples of other candidates whom went ahead with the debate during a major crisis. It's being seen as a diversion from the fact that the economic fundamentals were hunky dory according to him just last week now he's got to run off to save the country from an economic disaster. The presidents address was of course lousy and the way they're trying to push this bill through is being compared you know what. Obama's in so many words is saying you got to be able to do more than thing at a time to be president, it's called multitasking. And on top of all that he lied to David Letterman  

Poor Dave.

Remains to be seen whether it is a fumble or smooth move.  The only way it will be a smooth move (for me) is if McCain can cure Paulson's insanity by Monday.

Are you suggesting I might be a democrat?

I am for McCain so I'll let my prejudices be clear.  I think this illustrates that he has actually done his job as a Senator when Obama never really did. Obama basically got elected to Senate, didn't show up for votes, didn't distinguish himself at all and then started running for President. 

I think it's fine for McCain to make this financial crisis his number one priority but I do think he should still participate in the scheduled debate. 

I'm hoping he gets his act together and gets his ass to the debate on Friday.  I truly hate the thought of Obama and Biden in the White House.

I think, in a way, this is a brilliant move. As some suggested, it puts Obama in a bind and while Obama may have an answer to it, I think Mccain showing he cares about the fact that he is Senator first candidate second shows he will do his job if elected as well while Obama is simply taking advantage of this as well for his own political agenda. In the end, it makes McCain look better as the "I will do my job right" kinda person rather than the "I can do both" kinda person Obama is portraying.  But while saying he would rather lose was a poor choice of words, at the same time I don't really think that was meant as what he will actually do but more like a "I am willing to risk it all" kinda speechto show he will do what it takes to get the job done, which currently is as a Senator but show he as a President he will also focus on being just that if elected.

I just don't think McCain will actually give up so easily, to me it's more of a political move, a strategy. But the idea of changing the debate is what really makes all this look weird, especially the part that Jill mentioned about making it seem as if trying to protect Palin by putting the Preesidential debate over theirs. That right there does sound plausable and bad for the Republicans.

The only way for this to be a good move for McCain is if he can do something about the crisis. If all he does is show up to vote, this is a suicide mission. He has to be a dramatic part of this 'solution' and this 'solution' has to be acceptable to the average American. One or the other is just not going to cut it if he bails on the debate.

This is a risky roll of the dice no matter which way you look at it. There are so many ways to spin a response from the other side, I don't doubt they will come up with some clever response. If McCain can pull off the double whammy though, any response from the other side will be too little too late.

All they need to do is white this out and the bill should be good to go.

"Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency".

In other words we can't be held responsible for what happens to this 700 billion.

They're obviously trying to keep her under raps and that's probably the wisest thing to do. Politically she has no place to go but down, even if she doesn't say anything stupid the less she says the better.

John McCain has obsolutely no power over this except to vote yes or no when it hits the Senate floor.  If it makes it that far, it's already going to be passed.  Therefore, him dropping everything to fix the crisis seems like a poltiical stunt.  How's he going to fix it?  He's not on the right committees or sub committees.  He's not part of the controlling party.  He's not an economic expert.  He just wanted to make it seem like he knows what he's doing and Obama doesn't.

To all the people saying McCain is showing he can do his current job because of this; this isn't his current job.

He may not be on any of the commitees involved but that doesn't mean that he doesn't have influence over the Republican members of those commitees, some of them may welcome his thoughts and opinions.  Not to mention the fact that as a Presidential candidate he could possibly end up inheriting whatever plan is worked out so he should at least understand what it says, Obama should as well.

But as of my posting this it doesn't really matter anymore, both the House and Senate have agreed on a revision to the bailout proposal so all that is left is to get Paulson and maybe Bernanke's input on the revision and then put it to the full House and Senate for a vote.  By tomorrow evening they should have a plan approved, no matter how much I may disagree with it.

Which he won't be. The McCain campaign is proposing to have the debate moved to Thursday replacing the VP debate. Understandable when Palins best answer to many questions is "perhaps", however telling the American public that they are not stupid and expecting to pull off a stunt which assumes the opposite is suicide. McCain is in trouble. I drove thru a lot of NH today from my rural stronghold down to the city and the most striking thing I saw was that the poliitical support banners are flying strong but there is a VAST number of houses and businesses that have banners for all the GOP nominees for every office except president. This is striking since NH is well known for their GOP support of McCain.  Goodbye John. You can only lie so much before you shoot yourself in both feet. Or before the "live free or die" republicans cling to their guns and do the shooting for you.