Reacting to McCain’s proposal of postponement of the Friday debate in order to return to Capitol Hill to work on the log-jammed Bush administration legislation, Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid, said on Wednesday that there was no need for Obama and McCain to rush back to Congress.

McCain had announced the suspension of his Thursday campaign until Congress - resisting the approval of the White House’s $700 billion bailout package - works out a plan. McCain had also said that he would skip the first presidential debate in favor of the ongoing efforts to resolve the financial crisis.

A Democrat close to Reid informed ABC News that Reid, in a telephonic conversation with McCain on Wednesday afternoon, said clearly that both men returning to their Senate jobs will “risk injecting presidential politics into this process. ...We need leadership, not a campaign photo op.” The source said Reid thinks McCain’s maneuver is a gimmick born from bad poll numbers and the fact that “debate prep must not be going very well.”

Reid believes that this is a critical time for the country. He further believes that this is the right time for both candidates to hold a debate and tell how they would take the country out of the current financial crisis.

In a strong ‘disapproving’ reaction to Reid’s statement, McCain senior adviser Mark Salter expressed his opinion about the crisis and McCain’s role thus: “… what he (Reid) should understand is that this isn’t about Harry Reid or John McCain or Barack Obama. It’s about the American people and, in the words of Warren Buffet, the financial Pearl Harbor they’re facing. John’s committed to doing his part to help avert that calamity. We hope Senator Reid is too.”