McCain Will Debate Tonight

From CNN:

Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain will participate in Friday night's debate with his Democratic rival, Sen. Barack Obama, McCain campaign staff said. McCain said earlier this week he would not attend the debate if an agreement had not been reached on a $700 billion bailout plan for Wall Street.

The outcome was up in the air Friday as lawmakers scrambled to agree on a plan.

But by midday, McCain's campaign said the Republican presidential nominee believed enough progress had been made for him to travel to Mississippi to participate in the debate, set for 9 p.m. ET at the University of Mississippi campus.

"He is optimistic that there has been significant progress toward a bipartisan agreement now that there is a framework for all parties to be represented in negotiations, including Rep. [Roy] Blunt as a designated negotiator for House Republicans," the campaign said in a statement.

"The McCain campaign is resuming all activities and the senator will travel to the debate this afternoon." * * *

I was certain that McCain would attend the debate tonight regardless of whether a deal was reached. Sure, it will be embarrassing for him to show up now after saying that he would not unless there was a bailout agreement, but not attending would have been far more perilous for him politically.

Camp McCain will obviously be spinning this whole "I won't debate" deal in a big way over the next few days in an effort to make McCain appear more "presidential" because he was willing to "put country first," but it sure looks to me like he really screwed the pooch on all this. Even Mike Huckabee thinks that McCain's ploy was a mistake:

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee said Thursday that Sen. John McCain made a “huge mistake” by even discussing canceling the presidential debate with Sen. Barack Obama.

McCain’s campaign has said the Republican wouldn’t participate in the Mississippi debate Friday unless there was a consensus on the financial crisis, but Obama still wants the debate to go on.

Huckabee defeated McCain in the Alabama GOP primary in February.

Huckabee said Thursday in Mobile that the people need to hear both candidates. He said that’s “far better than heading to Washington” to huddle with senators.

He said the candidates should level with the people about the financial crisis and say the “heart of this is greed.”

Huckabee said he still backs McCain’s candidacy, but said the Arizona senator should not have put his campaign on hold to deal with the financial crisis on Wall Street. He said a president must be prepared to “deal with the unexpected.”

“You can’t just say, ‘World stop for a moment. I’m going to cancel everything,”‘ Huckabee said. * * *

The funny part about all this is that McCain really didn't suspend shit. As noted by Rebecca Sinderbrand at CNN: "The difference between a suspended campaign and a full campaign is starting to look a lot like the distinction between a speed walk and a slow jog: to the untrained eye, the pace seems about the same."