John McCain sees the ghost of Jim Lehrer.
After a week or two of getting beaten in the campaign, McCain has come up with a novel way to regain his footing: End the campaign. He's calling for a suspension until the bailout is finished, and asking that the presidential debate be postponed. As far as I can tell, the argument is that this is simply not a moment when the American people can afford a discussion of the issues. So McCain is going to return to the Senate for the next few days. Can't let the politics come before the...politics?But this only makes sense if you've been running, well, John McCain's campaign. A bread-and-circus show meant to distract Americans from the issues at hand. If that's your model of politics, then it makes a certain sense to suspend your relentless festival of diversion to focus on the financial crisis. Debates, however, are not planned by Steve Schmidt or run as 30-second ads. They are a moment when the presidential candidates appear before the American people and articulate their agendas in detail and at length. There's every reason to focus tomorrow's debate on the economic crisis, but no reason to cancel it. And, indeed, McCain is not canceling everything. He is still giving his speech at the Clinton Global Initiative. He is simply hiding from the debate. He's a kid pulling the fire alarm because final is coming up and he hasn't studied. Such a panicked response to declining poll numbers and major national events does not inspire confidence. You don't get to call time out when you're president. 
