McCain needed drama to shake up the campaign. Reminds me of Bob Dole’s dramatic decision to resign from the Senate back in 1996. That worked, huh? And, yes, it’s a stunt. Check out this statement from Obama’s spokesman, Bill Burton:

At 8:30 this morning, Senator Obama called Senator McCain to ask him if he would join in issuing a joint statement outlining their shared principles and conditions for the Treasury proposal and urging Congress and the White House to act in a bipartisan manner to pass such a proposal. At 2:30 this afternoon, Senator McCain returned Senator Obama’s call and agreed to join him in issuing such a statement. The two campaigns are currently working together on the details.

Yeah, the two campaigns were working together, well, except for McCain’s campaign. They were working on a stunt, which was unveiled at approximately 2:50 p.m. McCain is sooo above the political fray.

If this was so important, why didn’t McCain suspend his campaign NOW and head back to the Capitol ASAP? Instead, he’s waiting til tomorrow — and, not just tomorrow, but tomorrow after he speaks at the Clinton Global Initiative. So, for McCain, the crisis is important enough to bag the debate on Friday, but not important enough to head back to the Senate immediately. Then again, Bush had to finish reading “My Pet Goat” on September 11th and stayed on vacation during Katrina. So why should McCain have to miss the Clinton event and possibly not get his picture taken with Bono later today? These guys have their priorities during crises.

Make no mistake: This is a stunt from an increasingly desperate campaign — a campaign that doesn’t have a clue about the economy. The Washington Post/ABC News poll showing a nine-point Obama lead must be similar to McCain’s internal polling.

One other thing — Could CNN’s Dana Bash be a bigger suck up to McCain? My god, she just spews out their spin. She almost makes NBC’s Kelly O’Donnell look like a real reporter.