Obama camp expects McCain to show

A senior adviser to Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama said Thursday he expects Republican rival John McCain to appear at Friday night's scheduled debate despite the Arizona senator’s call to postpone the debate until a bailout solution is realized. 

Robert Gibbs told reporters that he thinks McCain will be there, but Obama is prepared to appear either way.

{mosads}"I actually think he's going to come to the debate," Gibbs said of McCain. "I think he will decide that a president is capable of doing more than one thing."

Gibbs, who said he is leaving for Oxford, Miss., the site of the debate, later Thursday, said moderator Jim Lehrer will not be alone Friday night, and that, as of Thursday morning, nobody from the Commission on Presidential Debates had reached out to the campaign to inform them of any changes.

"We're prepared to take questions from Jim Lehrer with or without John McCain," Gibbs said.

Gibbs, who continued to try and tamp down expectations for Obama at the up-in-the-air debate, said both campaigns had been informed by the moderator that the current financial crisis would be woven into a debate that is supposed to center around foreign affairs.

The adviser, appearing at a breakfast hosted by The Christian Science Monitor, referred reporters to late night comedian David Letterman's send-up of McCain, who backed out of an appearance on “The Late Show” with Letterman after announcing Wednesday afternoon that he was suspending his campaign to return to Washington to join Congress and the president to find a solution to the ongoing financial crisis.

Gibbs, who called Letterman's biting routine “fascinating,” also questioned the urgency with which McCain was returning to Washington.

“John McCain didn’t exactly tap the driver on the shoulder and say ‘to the airport post haste’,” Gibbs joked. He added: “I would point you to the fact that a man who was rushing back to Washington somehow found [CBS anchorwoman] Katie Couric on the way.”

Obama is returning to Washington Thursday, at the invitation of President Bush, to join the president, McCain and congressional leaders for an afternoon meeting on the financial crisis.

Gibbs said Obama has been working to shape whatever bailout package Congress comes up with, talking to congressional leaders and administration officials.