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Declaring that America was confronted with a “historic crisis,” Republican presidential nominee John McCain announced Wednesday he was suspending his campaign and returning to Washington. The question is whether it is his own campaign that is in crisis after new polls gave Barack Obama his biggest lead yet.

Despite signs of progress on Capitol Hill in crafting a bipartisan compromise on the Bush administration's $700-billion (U.S.) bailout of the financial-services sector, Mr. McCain declared that he believes there is little hope of congressional agreement.

“It has become clear that no consensus has developed to support the administration's proposal,” Mr. McCain said in a statement. “I do not believe that the plan on the table will pass as it currently stands, and we are running out of time.

“Tomorrow morning, I will suspend my campaign and return to Washington.”

Mr. McCain also proposed that Friday's first presidential debate be postponed. To all of which Mr. Obama replied: nix on that.

“What I'm planning to do now is debate on Friday,” Mr. Obama told reporters.. “It's my belief that this is exactly the time when the American people need to hear from the person who in approximately 40 days will be responsible.”

The Democratic presidential nominee will be in Washington Thursday to meet with Mr. McCain and George W. Bush, after the president proposed the meeting during an address to the nation last night.

Mr. Obama he “will continue to work in a bipartisan spirit and do whatever is necessary to come up with a final solution,” campaign spokesman Bill Burton said in a statement issued last night.

And the Obama and McCain camps did manage to issue a joint statement calling on Congress to act.

“This is a time to rise above politics for the good of the country,” they declared. “We cannot risk an economic catastrophe. Now is our chance to come together to prove that Washington is once again capable of leading this country.”

But that was the end of the co-operation. But Mr. Obama made it clear that he had no intention of suspending his campaign. Mr. McCain's decision comes on the heels of a Washington Post/ABC News poll that shows Mr. Obama surging into the lead in the wake of the financial crisis, 52 per cent to 43 per cent.

As ABC commentator George Stephanopoulos observed, no candidate with a lead that large this late in a presidential race has gone on to lose the election since Truman beat Dewey in 1948.

The numbers are a shocker because, up until now, neither candidate has been able to move more than a couple of points ahead of the other.

Other polls both confirmed and conflicted with the Washington Post/ABC News result. Fox News released a poll Wednesday that showed Mr. Obama leading Mr. McCain, 45 per cent to 39 per cent. Rasmussen daily tracking has Mr. Obama ahead of Mr. McCain by only two points, at 49 per cent to 47 per cent. That is, however, the first time in more than two weeks that Mr. Obama has led Mr. McCain by more than one percentage point.

But a NBC/Wall Street Journal poll released Wednesday also has Mr. Obama's advantage at only 2 per cent.

And a Diageo/Hotline tracking poll has Mr. Obama six points ahead of Mr. McCain, 48 per cent to 42 per cent, the largest lead the Democrats have enjoyed in that poll in this race.

The McCain camp dismissed the Post/ABC News poll as rogue.

“It's a margin-of-error race nationally, and it's a margin-of-error race in most of the most competitive states,” Bill McInturff, lead pollster for the McCain campaign, maintained in a conference call with reporters before the announcement to suspend the campaign.

Last night, a Wall Street Journal/NBC poll had the race still essentially tied, with 48 per cent favouring Mr. Obama and 46 per cent Mr. McCain, a gain of only one percentage point for Mr. Obama.

To the extent that the polls are accurate, it seems clear that voters are blaming the Republicans for the Wall Street meltdown and the Bush administration's fevered request to Congress for the bailout.

Fifty-three per cent of voters now say they trust Mr. Obama more than Mr. McCain to handle the economy, a six-percentage-point increase from the previous Washington Post/ABC News poll. Thirty-nine per cent would rather see Mr. McCain's hand on the tiller, a drop of three percentage points.

Clearly, Mr. McCain believes that he must recapture the initiative, which would help explain his unprecedented decision – in an election where the unprecedented is becoming positively mundane – to suspend his campaign and throw himself into the negotiations over the bailout package.

Mr. Obama's strategists made it clear the Illinois senator had no intention of surrendering to the Arizona senator's playbook, and that it should be possible to preserve the debate while also working on a joint solution to the bailout package.

“It's going to be part of the president's job to deal with more than one thing at once,” Mr. Obama said.

But this strategy comes with its own risks if voters conclude that Mr. Obama is playing politics while Mr. McCain is serving his country. Conversely, Mr. McCain faces the danger of reluctant Republican congressmen torpedoing their own administration's rescue plan, which would place him in an impossible position. That may be another reason he felt he had to return to the capital.

The debate, if it happens, will be historic. Forty-six years ago, two people died in a riot over the enrolment of James Meredith as the first black student to attend the University of Mississippi.

Now Ole Miss would host the first presidential debate with an African American as one of the nominees. Debate organizers said they were continuing with preparations for the debate despite Mr. McCain's declaration.