(CNN) – John McCain defended his decision to suspend his campaign last week to be on hand as Congress hammered out the details of the financial bailout plan that failed in a House vote Monday afternoon, telling an Ohio crowd that he left the campaign trail because he did not want to “simply phone it in.”
“I know that many of you have noticed, but it’s not my style to simply ‘phone it in.’ I am a Teddy Roosevelt Republican. I believe our leaders belong ‘in the arena’ when our country faces a challenge,” said the Republican nominee. “I’ve never been afraid of stepping in to solve problems for the American people, and I’m not going to stop now."
Over the weekend, both McCain and major supporter Sen. Lindsey Graham used similar language in describing the reason for his choice. “John didn’t phone this one in,” Graham told Fox News. “You can’t phone something like this in. Thank God John came back.”
Democrats responded by pointing to comments from top McCain advisor Mark Salter, who said that McCain had decided to spend his time at home or at his campaign headquarters instead of visiting Capitol Hill during marathon negotiations over the bailout bill over the weekend because “he’s calling members on both sides, talking to people in the administration, helping out as he can. …He can effectively do what he needs to do by phone,” said Salter.
McCain also told the crowd Monday that he “went to Washington last week to make sure that the taxpayers of Ohio and across this great country were not left footing the bill for mistakes made on Wall Street and evil and greed in Washington," and that that Barack Obama had been “watching from the sidelines” as the country faces a growing financial crisis.
“At first he didn’t want to get involved. Then he was ‘monitoring the situation,’” said the Arizona senator. “And watching from the sidelines is exactly what got us into this mess. It was the lack of accountability and oversight that put your working families tax dollars on the line,” he said, repeating his charge that Obama had supported tax increases on the middle class.
“A vote for Barack Obama will leave this country at risk during one of the most severe challenges to America’s economy since the Great Depression. You see, when it comes to growing the economy and protecting you from the corruption of Wall Street and Washington, Senator Obama just doesn’t get it.”
The Obama campaign responded with another statement that again made an issue of McCain’s demeanor. "Senator McCain’s angry diatribe today won’t make up for his erratic response to the greatest financial crisis of our time. John McCain knows that the budget he's talking about didn’t end up raising taxes on a single American,” said Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor.
From CNN Politics
© 2012 Cable News Network. Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
| Advertising practices | Advertise with us | About us | Work for us | Help
And many right wingers say Obama is full of himself.
MECANE & PLAIN = REPUBLICANT'S!
Yep; McCain went back to Washington to derail all the progress made to date. Now look where we are at...the stock market is tumbling...we want 4 more years of this? He could have inflicted the same damage via the phone.
Come on people, lift your heads of of the sand. Palin/McCain are an absolute joke!!!
God help this country. If McCain believes in 'Country First', he and Sarah need to step down.
I wish McCain would just sit down and shut-up. He sounds ridiculous at this point. The nation is in serious trouble and all he can talk about is his "suspension".
I wish Obama would pick up on this "Teddy Roosevelt Republican" mantra. Something along the lines of the American people looking for 21st-century solutions to problems facing them today.
It conveys his "McCain is out-of-touch" message while getting in a subtle shot as McCain's age.
John, are you going to suspend your campaign again? We still don't have a bailout plan....when are you leaving for DC?
CNN – Please Post this – Comment Re: McCain's public comments about attending the Presidential Debates
I would also like to interject that if McCain is aiming towards transparency if elected as our President then why did he not tell all of us (Americans) that there was no Republican elder that would be at the Economical Bailout and that was why he flew back to Washington? Instead he put everyone into a tail spin because we did not understand his position. This tells me that he was making a political attempt to throw the entire debate and the polls to slant his direction because he KNEW he was loosing ground....
The ecomony is bleeding like a freaking pig in lipstick and the only thing McGimmick offers the American people is more lies?
ANYONE voting for this man should be charged with TREASON!
Where the HECK is Palin's witch doctor when we need one!? Send her to Washington and tell her to do her voodoo and FIX this ecomony!
Helluva job there, Johnny...
Suspend his campaign? When did that happen?
What a pathetic LIAR.
Feel free to suspend it forever.
Excuse me but McCain did phone it in. He spent his time in his Virginia office talking on the phone. Both candidates appeared at the WH on Thursday and participated in a meeting. But while Obama was campaigning after the debate, he was also speaking on the phone, same as McCain, to the WH and other leaders about the crisis, staying on top of the negotiations. Obama was doing double duty, speaking to negotiators and also speaking to the American voters in the towns that he visited. He was doing it all. And apparently McCain could have stayed home and not said anything to anybody because the Repubs did not listen to his advice after all, as we see in the news today. What else are the negotiators going to say! That they didn't need McCain? That wouldn't have helped his campaign. They had no other choice but to back his silly drama. They had to deal with his campaign tactics at a time when they were stressed out trying to negotiate this megadeal. McCain is no leader.
If I see another sign saying 'Virginia is McCain Country," I will be doing some serious defacing. This guy is so besides himself. He's in for rude awakening 11/4/08.
OBAMA/BIDEN 08
cnn probably won't even post this comment because i am not a raging liberal, but that's okay. anyway... i say lots of negative things about obama, because i cannot stand him as a person, nor as a politician. therefore it doesn't offend me to come on here and see people saying such disrespectful, false, ignorant comments about mccain. HOWEVER... the person who said that "mccain hates america and americans" deserves to be shipped off to a third world country where there is no food and it's 150 degrees. HOW DARE YOU. mccain almost died for AMERICA and AMERICANS. how about obama hates white people? ooops did i say that? it's one thing to debate about a candidate's choices, but you are so ignorant and have such a low iq that they shouldn't even let you vote.
This man is so full of BS until it is not funny.
Give Obama a chance on the economy. We know McCain's hypocrisy and partisan pandering is not going to get us anywhere that Bush hasn't already gotten us.
We need to let Obama have the economy and see what he can do with it. It's all we've got left as a choice.
It appears that Mc(worthless as teats on a boar hog)Cain does not have much clout with his fellow Republicans as they voted 133 against the bailout bill.
Ok. So the bill was shot down. Will he suspend his campaign again?
No amount of justification will cover MCcain's ploy as something he did in peoples' interest in mind. It is so glaringly evidnet that it is a political stunt that he tried to pull to come across as a leader and it backfired. Everyone knows that McCain knows a didley about economics and his apparent campaign suspension is a scam. If he so bipartisan and resolving issues how come the house republicans did not vote for bailout?
Bottom line...if he were plugged in from the beginning and actually 'phoned it in' he would not have needed to 'rush off to Washington' 22 hours from NY (it's an hour flight max).
This is a scham. Obama needs to call him out on this directly...not through serogates...not through a written statement...he needs to say the words outloud!
You know what CNN, and stupid supporters of McCain/palin.
I am extremely furious about this, I live in PA and not one day has gone by where ads for McCain have stopped!! there are ads every 30min on TV, and Obama's ads air only a couple of times per day.
This is an outright LIE! I can send you footage of mcCain's ads. This is not a campaign suspension if his ads attacking Obama, Pelosi, reid are continuing. Ask every battleground state and you will get proof that the campaign is continuing. I am so tired of these lies.
John McCain did NOT suspend his campaign!
While McCain tried to lead, Obama played it safe.
"McCain is so full of himself.
He is also full of it."
you mean there's a difference between the two??