AT HIS WORST MOMENT IN THE CAMPAIGN, JOHN McCAIN GIVES UP

This morning, John McCain woke up to a Washington Post poll that has him down 52-43%, his economic deficit against Obama is worse (57-33%), and his Campaign Manager (Rick Davis) has just been exposed for taking money from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac up until last month, despite assurances from McCain that it stopped in 2005.

So what do you do when your Presidential Campaign is falling apart at the seams? Apparently you suspend your campaign, try to postpone debates, and go back to your old job as Senator in an attempt to show yourself as a "roll up your sleeves" kind of guy:

"Tomorrow morning I'll suspend my campaign and return to Washington," he told reporters.

The real question is, "Why tomorrow?" These meetings with Paulson and Bernanke have been going on since Monday. Furthermore the meetings that are currently taking place are with committees that John McCain is not a part of. If this is truly the crisis that McCain says it is, what good does it do the process to bring his "photo ops" into the picture?

Obama is also not a member of any of the committees meeting with the Treasury Secretary for Chairman of the Federal Reserve, which is why he said this yesterday:

In summary, there's no doubt negotiations over the next few days will be difficult. I will continue to stay in close contact with Secretary Paulson and Chairman Bernanke, as well as the leaders of Congress, to ensure that we can work in a bipartisan manner to get this done as quickly as possible.

Maybe if someone could show McCain how to use a friggin' Blackberry, he wouldn't have to bring his circus of a campaign into the middle of situation that doesn't need him - at all. Isn't this the same guy who said, "The fundamentals of our economy are strong," just nine days ago?

UPDATE: (via Huffingtonpost.com) The whole "bipartisan thing" happened at 8:30AM this morning when Obama called McCain:

"At 8:30 this morning, Senator Obama called Senator McCain to ask him if he would join in issuing a joint statement outlining their shared principles and conditions for the Treasury proposal and urging Congress and the White House to act in a bipartisan manner to pass such a proposal. At 2:30 this afternoon, Senator McCain returned Senator Obama's call and agreed to join him in issuing such a statement. The two campaigns are currently working together on the details."

Also, this is an odd move for a guy who JUST YESTERDAY claimed he HADN'T EVEN READ THE THREE-PAGE PROPOSAL from Paulson and the Administration? In response to the crisis and the propsal, McCain told Cleveland TV station WKYC:

"I have not had a chance to see it in writing. I have to examine it."

Haven't had a chance to see it? Why do you have a staff? You're a friggin' United States Senator?! It's THREE FRIGGIN' PAGES JOHN?! You can't get up to speed in three days on something that might cost the taxpayer some $700 billion dollars?!

Are we really supposed to believe that this decision is anything but a political stunt to offset his plummeting poll numbers? This is pathetic.