Usually when one hears of a candidate suspending their campaign, it is during the primaries, and it means they have not abandoned politics, but are in a holding pattern until the convention.  We saw this play out with Hillary and all the others. Such a suspension is a strategic move in politics, and it is not intended to bring a halt to the political process.

What McCain did in 'suspending his campaign' is something quite different, especially if we take him at his word, rather than characterizing his 'suspension' as a wily political gambit.  McCain said he was suspending his campaign, but advocating that Obama should do the same, which means he presented it not as a political strategy, but as the indeterminate end of the political process.  He did this saying that the welfare of the nation called for him to do this.

If we are to believe him, the difference between a typical candidate's campaign 'suspension' and McCain's is this: McCain was attempting treason.  The political process -- however ugly, mud-slinging and ignoble it may be -- is a process at the very core of democracy without which democratic elections become a sham.  You can take the high road or low road, but to say that circumstances require all roads be abandoned, as McCain's suspension proposes, is to use circumstance to undermine democracy itself.  And that is treason, not 'petty treason' like Benedict Arnold, but structural treason against the foundation of our polis.

Is McCain a traitor?  He is if we take him to be sincere, yes.  But, of course we all know that he's utterly disingenuous in his 'high-minded' appeal to country before campaign.  So, in a sort of 'inversion of the world,' as McCain casts himself higher into the stratosphere of self-congratulatory civic-mindedness, we know, in fact, that he's debasing himself as only a desperate and bottom-feeding politico can.

Josh Marshall asks who does McCain need around him to make him feel comfortable enough to go.  Two thoughts.  McCain's affection runs deep for Lieberman; I think he thinks of him, even treats him like a 'wing man.'  He's certainly served McCain in that way.

You not only need people around you that give you a comfort zone, but you also need people not there that make you anxious.  I think that Palin actually makes McCain nervous.  He know who she really is, how dangerous she can be (hence keeping her under wraps and away from the debates).  This is especially the case on foreign policy.  As an attendee of the debates, rather than the main act, it is especially unpredictable and precarious, as run ins with reporters is a distinct possibility for Palin.  So, I think if he goes to the debate, he'll have Sarah off doing something appropriately insignificant.

Sarah Palin's interview with the 'hard-hitting' Katie Couric did not go well (to her credit, Couric showed signs of moxie).  It was after the interview that McCain suspended his campaign.  Now, McCain goes to Washington, but why take Palin off the trail (as even Letterman quipped)?  Are things going so badly that McCain will suspend his campaign to protect Palin from further appearances?

The climactic moment in the classic movie, The Wizard of Oz, occurs when the curtains are pulled back and we find that the wizard is all smoke and mirrors.  Prior to that he seemed the very embodiment of power and importance.

McCain, enlisting George Bush, is betting the drama of big puffs of steam and flashing lights will impress.  And his it has certainly caught the nation's attention.  However, having of necessity invited Obama and Democratic leaders 'behind the curtain' for a meeting, McCain runs a great risk.  What if this meeting is little more than a bit of cheerleading (Bush is totally out of the negotiating loop, btw)?  What if all he has to say is 'Guys, we got to come together, rally the troops to vote for this bill.' (I mean, what really substantive can get done in this meeting after all, and as he's not on any relevant committee, what substantive is McCain going to do while in D.C.?  It's like a photo op with no photos.)  The danger is that the Democrats may make it clear that this meeting was a huge waste of time, even a distraction, and thereby they would expose McCain as having orchestrated a huge and desperate political stunt, like the Wizard of Oz.

When you're being chased by the bulldog and he's nipping at your heals, it's a great thing to have a hunk of red meat to throw in front of him.

I earlier predicted that we were seeing the death spiral of Rick Davis on the McCain campgaign, and we'd soon see him thrown under the bus.  That's very painful -- it amounts to crying uncle or an admission of guilt (two things McCain is incapable of) but the press dogs were coming.

What to do?  Diversion, create a dramatic event that will make Davis disappear from the headlines.  McCain, the high-rolling drama king found what he hopes will do that and even bolster his image as white knight quasi-president. 

So far he's right about the first part; the question is, is he going to look like Senator Chicken Little, rushing to rescue something that needs no rescuing?  If so, I can't imagine how he recovers, except by some future, even wilder high-risk gambit.  What could it be?

Perhaps McCain will try a European-esque campaign 'slowdown,' suspending campaigning every now and then to save money -- he's getting badly outspent!

It was just a short time ago -- August -- when Russia invaded Georgia, and in  a Haig-esque moment, McCain started to act like he was president, or secretary of state.  This bit of grandstanding did, however, seem to be followed by an uptick in the polls. 

So now, with his campaign sinking, he's going to grandstand, suspend his campaign -- high-risk stuff always with McCain -- and rush to Washington and be the hero that solves a crisis.

The guy is a megalomaniac!

Things couldn't be going worse for Rick Davis and, by extension, McCain's campaign of rage against  F & F insiders.  Davis, it turns out, leveraged his connections to McCain to get F&F to pay him $d15,00.  He got paid last month!  In his defense, Davis said there has been "no activity" in his relationship since 2005, which means no work was done for the dough.  So, what did F&F get for their $350,000?  ACCESS.  Davis is in the pocket of F&F and all he could offer is the promise of getting McCain there, too.

This is worse than lobbying -- at least lobbyists have to knock on doors, make their pitch, and REGISTER as lobbyists.  Davis went stealth.

Look for Intrade to put up numbers on whether Davis stays with the campaign until 11/4.  I guess by early October (at the latest) when McCain is desperate, he will throw Davis under the bus (if he can wait that long).

A press revolt against non-access?  Am I dreaming?  I guess, what do they have to lose!

As we head toward the debates focusing on foreign policy, expect McPOW to again remind us that he spent several years in captivity in Hanoi.  This reference to suffering is designed to be a conversation stopper.

But let's keep it going.  What, exactly, did McCain learn in captivity? Invariably, by his own account, he learned one thing: love of god and country.  Perseverance, scrappiness, risk-taking, decisiveness, leadership (he can't make leadership a POW benefit!) -- these are all things that, more or less, he had to already have had as a fighter pilot. 

So, when he speaks of deprivation, suffering, and conjures all the horrible images of captivity, someone should ask, exactly what lessons did he learn that stem uniquely from that captivity?  For instance, having lost five planes and finally ending up in captivity, did he ever question his own penchant for risk taking -- certainly most good fighter pilots take risks, but most don't lose five planes!

McCain didn't learn much from the Keating debacle, as Jonathan Alter has astutely remarked recently, and he seems not to have learned much from his captivity.  Maybe his not being a very good learner is why he ended up at the bottom of his class at the Naval Academy, and maybe this makes him more like Bush than any policy position, and perhaps this should make everyone -- liberal or conservative -- not only wonder what his point is in raising his captivity, but shudder that someone who's been offered such dramatic 'clarifying moments' in their life can actually avoid learning anything.

The NYT reports that Rick Davis, one of McCain's top two campaign managers was paid more than $2 million for lobbying Fanny and Freddie. 

Is it possible that McCain didn't know about this?  If he knew about it, how unbeleivably reckless was it of him to show his tough-guyness by railing against lobbyists, laying the blame for the collapse of the financial markets them?

There are two problems here -- one is 'just a problem' and one is a self-inflicted problem, namely, McCain was so quick on the trigger that he shoots himself in the foot before he can unholster his pistol.  The first problem is that McCain has lobbyists working for him, and it's perhaps a bit of a worse problem when his campaign is being run by lobbyists that have their fingerprints on the mess. But he might weather that if lobbyists were just caught up in something for which they weren't responsible.  But McCain couldn't do that.

McCain found himself between a rock and a hard place: he either says "the problem is the deregulated atmosphere in which financials were operating (in which case he bears responsibility for that) or he blames someone.  Now, his critical mistake was to indict not just the heads of these institutions but, in a weak play to blame Obama for the mess by linking him to it through lobbyists, he says that greedy lobbyists are to blame.  So he went shooting for lobbyists, recklessly, thinking he would bring down Obama but without thinking -- could he possibly not have known (no!) -- that one of his own was going to go down from 'friendly fire.' 

Prediction: McCain's recklessness will turn out to severely wound Davis (Obama got rid of Johnson in a New York second!), and rather than defend him (could he retract his brash diagnosis of the problem?), he'll throw him under the bus.