Mighty McCain

John McCain has just demonstrated the power of preemption.  What a feat!  McCain suspended his campaign to get back to d.c. to take on the task of saving financial markets (of course with a detour to NYC over to the Clinton Global Initiative so that Bill Clinton could himself be a post-partisan figure/exceedingly ungracious loser).  And whaddya know, the mere threat of McCain's participation has compelled Republicans and Democrats, House and Senate to iron out their differences and finalize bailout legislation. I suppose he can attend that debate after all.  Here is the key graf:

"Democrats were hoping to reach a final agreement on the framework of a bill ahead of that meeting, partly to deny any credit to Mr. McCain, who took the bold step on Wednesday of suspending his campaign and announcing that he would return to Washington to help secure a deal. Democrats said they did not need his help."

That's real power right there.

hat tip: Felix Salmon