McCain Aide Claims Credit For Deal, Says "We're Going Into A Debate"

Shortly before 2pm ET, McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds said on MSNBC that his boss deserves credit for the bipartisan bailout deal.

Bounds then apparently went way off message, indicating that McCain would attend tomorrow's debate. "We're going into a debate," Bounds said, adding "I think we're going there strong."

Here's a transcript of his conversation with Andrea Mitchell:

Before John McCain suspended his campaign yesterday, the situation that we're looking at today looked very different then. After he showed leadership and called for bipartisanship, for us to partisanship aside and tackle this solution head on, here we are. And we're going into a debate, I think we're going there strong.

Here's video:

This is unlikely to represent an official change in position for the campaign. Earlier in the interview Bounds was more on message, saying that the McCain campaign was "hoping to go into" the debate.