McCain's Handling of Financial Crisis No Gambit

Yesterday, I questioned Sen. John McCain's efforts to put partisanship aside and work on the financial crisis by hoping that Sen. Obama would agree to suspending the campaign and to delay the debate scheduled for Friday.

I thought it wasn't exactly a great idea and that it would offer up plenty of fodder for the Democrats and left wingers.

The left wingers and Democrats indeed sought to spin this as somehow McCain was unprepared to be President because he couldn't multitask or otherwise handle the situation.

However, that position is severely undercut by two simple facts.

First, Hank Paulson personally called McCain to step in to save the bailout plan by getting Republicans on board with the proposal since they were reluctant to sign off on the massive bailout. According to Bob Scheiffer at CBS News:

BOB SCHIEFFER: I am told, Maggie, that the way McCain got involved in this in the first place, the Treasury Secretary was briefing Republicans in the House yesterday, the Republican conference, asked how many were ready to support the bailout plan. Only four of them held up their hands. Paulson then called, according to my sources, Senator Lindsey Graham, who is very close to John McCain, and told him: you've got to get the people in the McCain campaign, you've got to convince John McCain to give these Republicans some political cover. If you don't do that, this whole bailout plan is going to fail. So that's how, McCain, apparently, became involved.

Second, even former President Bill Clinton thought that McCain was right to do so:


So, far from McCain acting in an irresponsible or purely partisan fashion, he was integral to trying to line up support for Paulson's plan and to craft a policy that might help stabilize the financial markets. Sen. Harry Reid and Sen. Obama were left sucking their thumbs because they put rank partisanship ahead of the nation.

Still, I don't think voters will appreciate the situation as fully as they should. They'll still associate the bad economy with the Republicans, even though McCain has been at the forefront of trying to fix the problems and Obama has been on the sidelines (as usual).

Meanwhile, the Obama campaign continues to seek the advice of Jim Johnson, who is responsible in part for the financial mess.