When Is A Campaign Not Really Suspended?

When is the suspension of a presidential campaign not a real suspension at all? When serial flip flopper John McCain declares to the nation that he's suspending his campaign and wants to postpone the upcoming debate. But at the same time, the campaign keeps right on rolling along, with McCain himself continuing to do interviews, like the one he did with Katie Couric last night, while stiffing a scheduled appearance with David Letterman and meeting with former Hillary Clinton supporter and embittered PUMA Lady Lynne Forrester de Rothschild (yes, that Rothschild) and when his campaign still remains open and active. Huffington Post has a run down of all the campaign activity that has taken place during this campaign suspension.

Across the country, McCain campaign offices are up and running, accepting volunteers, conducting phone banking, literature dropping and other GOTV activities. This held true on a local, state, and even regional level. The Huffington Post called up 15 McCain-Palin and McCain Victory Committee headquarters in various battleground states. Not one said that it was temporarily halting operations because of the supposed "suspension" in the campaign. Several, in fact, enthusiastically declared the continuation of their work. Others hadn't even heard that the candidate for whom they were devoting their time had officially stopped campaigning.

In Ohio, Brenda Lewis of the Greene County Victory Office seemed surprised there was any doubt that the office would be open. "Suspension of the campaign?" she asked out loud, before saying that her colleagues would be phone banking, going door to door, and could use some front desk help as well as assistance getting signs together. Similar level of activities were taking place in the state's Franklin County and Clark County offices.

And closer to home, Lowell reports that the McCain campaign is still robustly working away on GOTV efforts in Virginia. A reader emailed him that the McCain headquarters in Arlington is definitely open for business and encouraging volunteers to come in. And McCain himself is scheduled to do three major television interviews tonight according to Politico's Jonathan Martin.

Excuse me but McCain's latest ploy to be a "game changer" is looking stupider and more cynical by the minute. Unfortunately, the only people being fooled are loyal Republican bloggers and pundits, who, I think, really know in their hearts that they are being played. There are some Republicans in the blogosphere I genuinely admire, but I think they've been dealt a bum hand in having to defend this guy. He's just not the old John McCain of 1999 and 2000.