Beyond the Dome

John McCain says he’s trying to “set politics aside” by suspending his campaign and coming back to Washington to work on the financial crisis. (He’s even suspending his ads!)

And yet, for a non-political exercise, it’s funny how quickly lawmakers on Capitol Hill seemed to have their talking points ready about the whole thing.

On the Republican side, they’ve been talking about how important it is for both McCain and Barack Obama to come back to work on a bipartisan solution, since one of them will be left holding the bag in a few months.

“Your two candidates who will have a stake in the outcome have a responsibility in this process,” Rep. Adam H. Putnam of Florida, chairman of the House Republican Conference, told reporters during a House vote a while ago.

That’s awfully close to the language of the statement House Minority Leader John A. Boehner of Ohio used in a statement he put out minutes later. “Given that it is only a few months before a new President takes the oath of office, it is vital that the next President play an active role in crafting this critical plan,” Boehner said.

For that matter, Rep. Kay Granger of Texas, vice chairwoman of the House Republican Conference, beat everyone to the punch, saying “it would be helpful if McCain and Obama stood up and said they want to be part of this” even before McCain announced the plan.

The Democrats, meanwhile, got together quickly and gave Obama the pass he needed to avoid coming back to Capitol Hill — at least while the bailout package is being negotiated. (Obama did say at a press conference this afternoon that he and McCain should come back for the final vote “to send a strong message that, in fact, we need to get something done.”)

“It would not be helpful at this time to have them come back during these negotiations and risk injecting presidential politics into this process or distract important talks about the future of our nation’s economy,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada said in a statement released minutes after McCain’s announcement. “If that changes, we will call upon them.”

That was quickly followed by a floor speech by Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin, Obama’s Illinois colleague. Durbin backed up Obama’s story that he was the one who first called McCain this morning and suggested putting out a joint statement about the financial crisis — before McCain raised the stakes by suspending his campaign and challenging Obama to do the same.

“He can make that decision if he chooses to,” Durbin said of McCain’s plan to return to Washington, “but I think the honest honest answer is he will bring the presidential campaign with him to Washington … It is a charged political atmosphere. Bringing a presidential campaign into this atmosphere is not going to make it easier or more likely it will come to a good ending.”

And what would McCain do when he gets here? Republican Rep. Thomas M. Davis III of Virginia, one of the few lawmakers who doesn’t use anyone’s talking points these days, insists McCain could play a positive role by talking to members and rallying support for the bailout, since “I think a lot of members are in denial that this is really happening.”

McCain has actually managed to cut through the political games before — particularly as the co-leader of the bipartisan “Gang of 14,” which prevented a showdown over filibusters of judicial nominations in the Senate three years ago. So far, though, his return to Washington shows no signs of cutting through political games of any kind.