Obama Smacks McCain's Bailout Stunt

Barack Obama started today at 8:30 a.m. by offering McCain a joint statement on the financial crisis. But that wasn't good enough for McCain, who had to one-up Obama by proposing a suspension of the entire campaign and a postponement of Friday's debate, daring Obama to say no and thereby appear more interested in politics than the economy.

Obama rejected McCain's stunt with the appropriate smackdown:

It's my belief that this is exactly the time when the American people need to hear from the person who in approximately 40 days will be responsible for dealing with this mess. I think that it is going to be part of the president's job to deal with more than one thing at once.

Ouch!!! If Obama keeps this up, he's going to win in an LBJ-style landslide!

Here's my proposal for bipartisanship: Obama and McCain should agree to change the topic of Friday's debate from foreign policy to economic policy, since that's what everyone is focused on this week.

Update 1: Instant poll results from SurveyUSA - McCain's stunt gets a whopping 10%!

Hold as scheduled 50
Hold with focus on economy 36
Postpone 10

Update 2: Kos collects the snarky explanations for McCain's stunt:

Jesse Walker, Reason: I'd rather debate pressing issues behind closed doors with my colleagues than on national TV where voters might see me.

Daily Kos reader SteamPunkX: McCain Suspends Campaign Due to Lack of Interest

DavidNYC's wife: Clearly McCain is afraid to appear at the debate without Palin.

Daily Kos reader fearisthemindkiller: All McCain's got are these cheap stunts. See "Sarah Palin."

Ben Smith, Politico: [I]n terms of the timing of this move: The only thing that's changed in the last 48 hours is the public polling.

Update 3: More smackdown from Seth Grahame-Smith:

Lincoln ran for office during the Civil War. Reagan ran at the height of the Cold War. Bush ran with two wars raging in Afghanistan and Iraq. But McCain can't run during a crisis on Wall Street?

New Yorkers all remember then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani insisting after 9/11 that the November mayoral race be postponed because no one else could possibly run New York City as well as he did. (Giuliani wasn't running due to term limits, and we elected Mike Bloomberg, who has run NYC infinitely better than Giuliani ever did.)

Update 4: David Letterman piles on!

"You don't suspend your campaign. This doesn't smell right. This isn't the way a tested hero behaves." And he joked: "I think someone's putting something in his metamucil."

"He can't run the campaign because the economy is cratering? Fine, put in your second string quarterback, Sara Palin. Where is she?"

"What are you going to do if you're elected and things get tough? Suspend being president? We've got a guy like that now!"