Good question. There's no doubt that the Obama camp, and its willing allies in the news media, are hammering McCain for supposedly flip-flopping. But note this:
"“First you’re on, first you’re off, very mercurial dealing with issues and circumstances. Frankly I believe this is a political ploy by the McCain campaign,” Hoyer told FOX News Radio. “When it came back here, it frankly was a dud and not only was not helpful, it was unhelpful.”
McCain’s camp suggested that a lot of progress had been made on the Wall Street bailout, aimed to stem the collapse of U.S. investment firms overburdened by bad mortgage securities.
“Senator McCain has spent the morning talking to members of the administration, members of the Senate and members of the House,” his campaign said in a statement. “He is optimistic that there has been significant progress toward a bipartisan agreement now that there is a framework for all parties to be represented in negotiations.”
So McCain is going to say that he went back to Washington; that he worked all Thursday and into early Friday, talking mainly to Republicans in the House and Senate; and that he got them basically all on the same page when it came to what they wanted and what they would fight for regarding this bailout proposal, and that this has helped move the negotiations forward. He'll try to argue that he showed leadership and accomplished something, and Senator Obama didn't.
We'll see how it plays out.
