I believe it was a little of all of the above. Mostly though, it was the winning move in a political fight that Obama and Harry Reid were orchestrating. McCain received a call from Obama early on Wednesday asking if McCain would like to join him in publishing a joint set of principles on the bailout bill upon which the 2 of them agreed. McCain was calling multiple leaders of both parties and the administration to gauge the progress of the negotiations and status of the bill when Harry Reid informed McCain that he had a press release ready to announce the publishing of the Obama/McCain principles. Say what you want about McCain, but his political instincts that have been sharpened by 26 years in politics knew he was being played by the orchestrated efforts of the Democrat leaders in the Congress and the Obama campaign.

McCain did the right thing to take decisive action on this campaign and his involvement in the bail out bill. The Democrats did not want him in Washington and there is only one reason – they wanted Obama to own the economy. By pressing this bailout, the President and his administration own the problem. The only item left that has any political value is the “Solution” and “Leadership on the economy.” Since the solution is unpopular, the Obama campaign was more than willing to remain out of town to let the Congress craft the solution and gain politically from the “taxpayer protections” amendments that are being added to the administration’s proposed legislation.

That left “Leadership on the Economy” as the remaining item with political value. The best way for Obama to maintain that was to have both McCain and Obama remain out of Washington and by default that leaves Obama as the leader since he has that at present. What would we think about President Bush if he was in Florida preparing for a political debate or flying off to a political fund raiser right now? Who in their right mind would say “Well, a President has to have the ability to focus on more than one thing at a time.” That is ridiculous and this quote will come back to haunt Obama when the discussion comes on leadership of the economy question. He will have to say “As a sitting Senator and Presidential candidate, I was willing to let Chris Dodd, Harry Reid Barney Frank and Nancy Pelosi fix the single biggest financial crisis in my lifetime.” Now that is lack of leadership we can believe in.

It is about country first, John McCain is willing to go into a political firestorm to rescue this country. If he were making a pure political calculation his campaign could have convinced any other politician that the benefit of fighting to leadership on the economy was not worth the potential risk of embracing this issue and it’s unpopular solution. I can imagine McCain sitting in New York pacing, calling, just itching to get into this issue with his colleagues back in Washington. Then to be pushed out by a freshman Senator and his ally Harry Reid was more than McCain could take. John McCain is running toward the fire in this country, not just sitting by because someone told him things would be better if he just stayed back.

Yes, McCain is playing politics with this issue. However he just one upped his opponents political gamesmanship. Yes, McCain realizes he is in a knife fight with a gang of political thugs and if they turn their back on you there is only one place to stab them. Yes, McCain is “Country First” and his desire to be part of an unpopular solution is proof of that.