Analysis: McCain’s Bailout Gamble Looks Like a Bad Roll (CQ)

[jefferson_dem]

Analysis: McCain’s Bailout Gamble Looks Like a Bad Roll
By Jonathan Allen, CQ Staff

After rolling the dice by personally indentifying himself with a $700 billion Wall Street bailout proposal last week, it appears Republican presidential nominee John McCain crapped out early Monday afternoon when the House of Representatives rejected the bill by a vote of 205-228.

Republicans insisted that McCain’s well-publicized involvement had led to improvements in the legislation and built backing among Republican members behind a bill that no one wanted to have to vote for.

But despite a McCain intervention in the process that was dramatic — or melodramatic, as some critics describe it — only 65 House Republicans voted for the measure. The figure fell far short of the number that House Republican leaders had promised to deliver to ensure wide bipartisan support.

Nearly every member of the nation’s political leadership owns a share of the blame for crafting a bailout that did not assuage enough lawmakers’ concerns to pass. But McCain invested more political capital than anyone else in a deal that went bad.

McCain announced last Wednesday that he was suspending his campaign and called on President Bush to convene a White House meeting with him, Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama and congressional leaders of both parties to put some muscle behind the legislation. At the same time, McCain called for last Friday’s scheduled first debate between himself and Obama to be postponed, though he later back off that position.

Democrats accused McCain of politicizing what Bush had described as a national emergency by adding the pressure of the presidential campaign to the tenuous bailout plan negotiations. Republicans countered that McCain gave a needed push to a measure that had no visible support in their caucus.

Had the House and Senate passed the bill, the legislative success would have had 1,000 mothers and fathers, including Bush; Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson; House Speaker Nancy Pelosi , a California Democrat; Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank , a Democrat from Massachusetts; Minority Leader John A. Boehner , an Ohio Republican; and Obama, who said he worked the phones to abet the process. But McCain’s high profile might have especially earned him much-needed plaudits after his campaign slipped from a slim lead in some polls following the Republican convention to trailing Obama by several percentage points in most polls.

But after the bailout bill fell apart, McCain was left with little room to argue he had helped the process. So, he fired a few partisan shots.

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http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?docID=news-000002966228

[mwb970]

1. I'm starting to dislike McCain *very* intensely.

What a worthless piece of crap he is. I can't stand anything about him any more. In 2000 I actually kind of liked the guy, but now! My God, he's a total putz.