John McCain has effectively stopped campaigning to travel to Washington to deal with the economic crisis. He has also called for a postponement of the debate scheduled between him and Barack Obama on Friday night.
McCain was scheduled to appear on David Letterman last night and canceled. Letterman ceaselessly ripped into McCain, and essentially called him out for cynically taking advantage of a crisis to try to get him campaign back on track. Letterman also questioned why Palin doesn't continue the campaigning while McCain is in Washington to deal with the problem.
Letterman isn't the only one who was taken aback by McCain's decision. Obama's campaign seems stunned and isn't quite sure how to react - do they call him out or do they push off the debate? Will they seem to be better equipped to handle the crisis or seem to not be taking it seriously enough?
Personally, although I don't see how McCain can possibly be useful in Washington right now (this problem is better left to the various financial and economic wizards to sort out), there's no question this is a brilliant political move, cynical as it is. As for why Palin doesn't continue campaigning, I think that's obvious (see any of my previous posts on Palin for the answer).
So, in terms of the title of this post, my answer is "yes and yes", by engaging in "politics as usual" McCain has seized the initiative on the economy from Obama.
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Buy DB's book. (please)
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