McCain Decides to Participate in Debate

By PATRICK HEALY
Published: September 26, 2008
Senator John McCain’s campaign said Friday morning that he will attend tonight’s debate with Senator Barack Obama at the University of Mississippi, reversing his earlier call to postpone the debate so he could participate in the Congressional negotiations over the $700 billion bailout plan for finan
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Moments after Senator McCain ended several of days of suspense and announced that he would participate in the debate after all, the doors of his campaign plane were opened and the steps were down, as Mr. Obama’s 757 idled nearby on the runway at Ronald Reagan National Airport outside Washington, according to a pool report. Both planes were set to arrive in Memphis on Friday afternoon.

Senator Obama finished a round of telephone calls with Congressional leaders and Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. before leaving Washington to fly to Memphis and drive to Mississippi to prepare for the first presidential debate of the general election.

“My strong sense is that the best thing that I can do, rather than to inject presidential politics into some delicate negotiations, is to go down to Mississippi and explain to the American people what is going on and my vision for leading the country over the next four years,” Mr. Obama told reporters aboard his plane. “I’m looking forward to the debate and look forward after the debate to coming back to Washington and hopefully getting a package done.”

Mr. Obama said he was encouraged by the Congressional negotiations underway on the government’s bailout package of the nation’s financial institutions, and “optimistic” at the prospects for a deal.

“I think that there is real progress being made this morning and last night,” Mr. Obama said. “I think it’s important that the markets seem to be staying relatively calm at this point.”

Asked whether the White House meeting on Thursday was a mistake, Mr. Obama said, “I’m not sure that it was as productive as it could have been, but I think at this point, it’s important just to move forward.”

The discussion will resume later in Oxford, Miss., where the debate begins at 9 p.m. E.D.T.

Mr. McCain had thrown preparation for the debate into turmoil on Wednesday afternoon after he announced that he intended to suspend campaigning — including participating in first of three nationally televised presidential debates — to be in Washington for the negotiations. His campaign issued a statement Friday morning saying he was now "optimistic" that a bipartisan bailout agreement would soon be reached, citing "significant progress" in the talks.

Mr. Obama, who said all along that he expected the debate to go on as planned intended to resume preparations for the forum in Memphis before driving south to the university campus in Oxford.

In the meantime, McCain and Obama aides in Oxford continued to prepare for the debate, according to two members of the Commission on Presidential Debates, the nonpartisan group that is sponsoring the three presidential and one vice-presidential debates.

The two commission members said that all along they had been operating under the assumption that the debate would be held, noting that the Republican governor of Mississippi, Haley Barbour, an ally of Mr. McCain’s, was among those privately expressing confidence that the Arizona senator would show up.

If Mr. McCain had not, the commission members were at a loss to say what might have transpired in Oxford . Obama aides said on Friday morning that the Illinois Democrat would probably have been at Ole Miss whether Mr. McCain was there or not. But whether he would have participated in a one-on-one exchange with the debate moderator, Jim Lehrer of PBS, was unclear, the commission members said.

They said that the commission had not been inclined to hold an event in place of the debate that was seen as favoring Mr. Obama over Mr. McCain, but they added that it would have been Mr. McCain’s fault — not the commission’s — if some sort of televised forum had been held on Friday night that featured Mr. Obama alone.

President Bush and congressional negotiators said Friday morning that they were resuming talks on the proposed bailout, with Mr. Bush, delivering a statement outside the Oval Office, expressing confidence that an agreement would be reached. Congressional aides said that they did not expect any votes to take place on Friday — a point that Obama aides noted in saying that they saw no reason the debate could not take place.

Mr. McCain spent Friday morning in Washington meeting with House Republican leaders and some of his allies in the Senate. He spent 15 minutes this morning in the office of Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, and was accompanied there by his top economic adviser, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, and his friend, Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina.

After 15 minutes the group moved to the office of Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the House Republican leader. From there, Mr. McCain returned to his campaign headquarters in Arlington, Va., about 10:40 a.m.

Shortly before 11 a.m., Mr. McCain’s top advisers, Mark Salter and Steve Schmidt, came outside the headquarters for a cigarette break. "Give us five minutes,” Mr. Schmidt said.

As for Mr. Obama, after completing a round of morning calls with congressional leaders, administration officials and his economic advisors in Washington, he took off for Memphis.