Has John McCain lost his mind?

Some things that happened today in the campaign:

• Obama is up by as much as +9 points in some national polls
  
• The NY Times reports that McCain campaign manager was, until recently, receiving $15,000 a month to provide Freddie/Fannie execs with "access" to McCain
• McCain decides to "suspend his campaign" to focus on the financial crisis and calls for postponing Friday's debate (and the VP debate!)
  

It really is fascinating to watch these two campaigns because they are total mirror images of each other. The McCain campaign is all tactics, no strategy. They focus on winning the news cycle, attacking and scoring points--which makes perfect sense for an underdog. On the other hand, Obama (the front-runner) is pure strategy. They've got their plan for victory mapped out to the precinct. They keep their head when crises rear up and rarely change course. Sometimes it seems they could care less about the news cycle.

So: a few weeks of bad news and McCain hits the panic button. I'm sure McCain's advisers are high-fiving each other over their latest brilliant move. But I'll bet your average swing voter will see this as McCain trying to get out of turning in his homework. We'll see.