McCain has said he will return to Washington after addressing former President Bill Clinton's Global Initiative session today in New York. He canceled a appearance scheduled for last night on CBS' The Late Show with David Letterman and a meeting with the Indian prime minister.
McCain's running mate was canceling her limited campaign events. Palin said in an interview yesterday with the CBS Evening News that the country could be headed for another Great Depression if Congress doesn't reach a solution.
Throughout the day, McCain and Obama were locked in an unusual back-and-forth about the bailout and McCain's decision to suspend his campaign. The exchange started with a morning telephone call from Obama to McCain to ask whether McCain would issue a joint statement on the government bailout plan. But McCain was not available to take the call, and the two did not connect until six hours later, about 2:30 p.m.
At that point, they had what the McCain campaign described as a 10-minute phone call, but the substance of it remained in dispute between the two campaigns. According to Schmidt, McCain told Obama that he was going to suspend his campaign and return to Washington and that he had called Bush to ask that he convene a meeting on the crisis.
But Obama said he was left with the impression from the conversation that McCain was "mulling over" suspending the debates as an option, not a final decision.
Obama conceded being taken by surprise by the afternoon announcement from McCain, which Obama aides said occurred about 10 minutes after the phone conversation between the two men.
Obama stopped short of suggesting that his Republican opponent was playing politics, but he did say with a glint of humor that both he and McCain were capable of engaging in the debate and negotiations in Congress at the same time.
"If it turns out that we need to be in Washington, we've both got big planes - we've painted our slogans on the sides of them," Obama said. "They can get us from Washington, D.C., to Mississippi fairly quickly."
Two members of the Commission on Presidential Debates, the nonpartisan group that has sponsored the debates since 1988, said yesterday that they were pursuing a strategy of trying to force McCain's hand by having the full commission release a strongly worded statement saying that the debate would go forward as planned.
The commission members noted that past debates had been held during moments of crisis, such as the attack on the USS Cole during the 2000 debates, and that they believed both McCain and Obama could follow through on their commitment to participate in tomorrow night's debate while also exercising their duties as senators amid the bailout negotiations.
"Our role is not to play referee on their involvement in or concern about the bailout talks, but to hold a debate that all sides have agreed to," said one commission member, who spoke on condition of anonymity because members had agreed not to speak beyond the commission statement released yesterday. "At this point, we see no reason to cancel the debate."
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
