McCain Suspends Campaign; Congress Should Postpone Adjournment; Debate Should Be Modified

Update 1
While I was volunteering at a local winery today, John McCain announced a suspension of his campaign to work on a Congressional financial package to bailout the ailing economy. (tip) McCain has also called for Friday's Democratic and Republican presidential debate to be postponed and has asked Barack Obama to join him in temporarily putting presidential politics aside.

I think that all of Congress should join McCain and announce that they will stay in D.C. until a proper package -- one that has as much respect for Main Street as it has handouts for Wall Street -- is developed ... and postpone all electioneering until it's done. What do you think?

Update: I'm doubly certain that I think Congress should postpone its planned adjournment, set for Friday. That's because I just reviewed Congressional calendars back to 1971, checking to see when Congress normally adjourns in an election year.

Back in 1976 (also a presidential election year), Congress adjourned on 1 October; both chambers were controlled by Democrats. In 1996 (also a presidential election year), Congress adjourned on 4 October; both chambers were controlled by Republicans. So this Congress, which planned to adjourn on Friday until Wall Street blew up in their faces, was proposing to adjourn a week earlier than those two Presidential elections -- the earliest Congressional adjournment in more than 30 years.

I don't think that's the kind of "change" that voters had in mind in 2006 when they kicked the Republicans out and put Democrats in charge of Congress.

If the "debate" goes forward on Friday, I propose that the League of Women Voters be allowed to take over; that all major candidates be allowed to participate, not just the big two; and that the topic be shifted to the economy. Extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures: it's past time to wrest control of the debates from the duopoly that is American political parties.

The last time that there was this sort of controversy over the debates was in 1980, when President Jimmy Carter refused to take the stage if the debate -- then sponsored by the League of Women Voters -- included third party candidate John Anderson. Ronald Reagan, the Republican nominee, pushed to have Anderson included. (I confess I don't understand Reagan's strategy, other than to do something in opposition to the Carter campaign.)

More from Justin Quinn, About.com's guide to conservative politics and Kimberly Amadeo, About.com's guide to the US economy.