Let’s suspend the suspensions

There may be only 20 days left before early voting begins, but given the precedent offered by John McCain this election, I thought I'd suspend my political writing.

For a paragraph.

And now that I'm back, having really done nothing to suspend anything, I'm actually sticking right with the McCain playbook.

First there was the pseudo scary Hurricane Gustav that led McCain to suspend the Republican National Convention by the equivalent of my suspension.

Then there was a real bad storm, impacting a major U.S. city, and McCain just rolled right along.

There are no time outs in a presidential campaign.

You can't just say some things are more important. And you can't just say you're suspending a campaign when you're not.

McCain's television ads ran Thursday and Friday in both Nevada markets, even though the official McCain line is that they were to restart the campaign Saturday.

By the way, what sense did it make for McCain to go to Washington in the first place? He announced he was suspending his campaign only after the bailout plan had cleared the Senate.

Yet McCain said he needed to go work on Capitol Hill.

Seems to me it was largely his decision to return that gave House Republicans the hope they needed to muck up the deal.

Say what you will about the legislative insanity that is a $700 billion bailout, but when everyone is urging a quick fix and you decide it's time to reopen an unrelated debate, that's obstruction.

And while obstruction is the hallmark of current policy in Washington, there was a way to get something passed quickly (that is to say by the time I wrote this early Friday afternoon).

The way I see it, House Republicans, fearing another bad election year and further erosion of their obstruction power, decided to refocus the presidential debate on behalf of McCain.

That's how the capital gains tax enters the fray.

You can argue whether the Democratic stimulus items added to the administration's bailout are worthy. And you can make a case about virtually any earmark (there are plenty of those in the bailout).

But now House Republicans decide this is their line in the sand, and the only way to help those members back in the swing districts is to force Democrats and Democratic candidates to take a vote on taxes.

I wonder if McCain hadn't "suspended" his campaign whether John Boehner would have tried that tactic.

Anyway, it was nice to see McCain injecting himself in the discussion during a week when polls suggested more voters were turning to Obama because of the economy.

Maybe the suspension ploy was also used to get more people to tune in to the debate that almost wasn't.

After all, McCain's campaign was hyping it as a "game changer."

The suspension clearly didn't help anything move along in Washington. In fact the bipartisan statement Barack Obama had initiated was largely forgotten after McCain's House Republican pals blew up the negotiations.

McCain also looked eerily like Jim Gibbons last week. On Wednesday morning, Obama called McCain to initiate the bipartisan statement. McCain agreed it was a good idea and got to work on it. Never mentioned the suspension. Then his campaign sends over the bipartisan statement at the same time McCain announces he's suspending his campaign and won't debate unless a deal is reached.

Gibbons, you'll recall, talks to the state's Democratic leaders about the budget crisis, makes no mention of a special session and then calls one the next day amid news reports he'd been having textual relations on the taxpayer's dime.

Of course he couldn't let Obama stand next to a cardboard cutout. (I saw the RNC's cutouts at the convention in Minnesota and they were even shorter and more awkward than the real McCoy.)

McCain's "suspension" also didn't mean a thing on the ground here in Nevada.

John O'Hurley has gone from "Seinfeld" and "Spamalot" (cool) to "Dancing with the Stars" (uncool) to McCain-Palin GOTV (just plain abysmal).

O'Hurley was on the robocalls for the campaign Thursday in Las Vegas (I know because he called me, encouraging me to go to work for McCain and Palin).

Over at McCain HQ, the staff was still manning the office and the volunteers were still making their calls on Thursday and Friday when so-called suspension was in order.

Imagine if Jerry Manuel announced on Friday that the Mets were temporarily suspending their campaign for the playoffs. (By today, Mets fans may actually wish that happened. Early deadline strikes again.)

Imagine if Gibbons would announce he's suspending his activities as governor until the financial crisis is figured out in Washington. (Fill in your own punchline here.)

No, the suspended campaign didn't stop seeking "compliance fund" donations, didn't stop making calls, didn't stop airing television ads and didn't stop any of the typical partisan meltdowns in Washington.

His campaign was still out at the DMV registering "only Republican" voters. McCain didn't even duck the debate.

The close of regular voter registration is Saturday (Oct. 14 if you bring it into the clerk's office) and early voting starts two weeks from Saturday.

The only suspension McCain should be allowed going forward is a suspension on calling any more suspensions.

Contact Erin Neff at eneff@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2906.