Barack Obama is speaking as I write this, and he notes that presidents have to deal with more than one issue at a time, while stating that it's "more important than ever" to hold Friday's debate with John McCain.
He clearly is in favor of carrying on with the debate as scheduled.
It was Obama who initiated communication with the McCain campaign early this morning to discuss the possibility of a joint statement on the financial crisis.
Obama indicated surprise that McCain went on TV shortly thereafter, before a joint statement had been prepared.
McCain, of course, now wants to suddenly "suspend" his campaign and postpone Friday's debate.
Welcome to his "Desperation Express".
As Nico Pitney points out in HuffPo today, McCain has missed more Senate votes this session than any member except Tim Johnson, who had brain surgery.
As of yesterday, Papa Maverick hadn't even bothered to read the three-page bailout proposal put forth by the administration.
Ben Smith at Politico.com posits that "the only thing that's changed in the last 48 hours is the public polling."
McCain is currently down by 9 points in the latest Washington Post/ABC News poll.
A FOX News/Opinion Dynamics poll shows a 6 point Obama advantage. Earlier this month, McCain was up by 3 points in a similar survey.
Expect a firestorm of accusations, charges of patriotic superiority, and all manner of silly distractions if the debate goes off on Friday as originally planned.
The negotiations on the bail-out have not ground to a halt because we are in the midst of a presidential race, and we'd better hope that the next president can do more than one thing well at a time.
The current president sure as hell can't.
UPDATE:
The University of Mississippi, who is hosting the debate, has just announced (shortly after 2PM PST) that the debate will go on as scheduled.
Jeez, I hope the driver of the "Desperation Express" can find his way there...
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