To me, it looks like McCain decided to inject presidential politics into the negotiation over the bailout package, exacerbating existing Republican wariness of the deal on the House side (remember, all of these folks have to get reelected in a month). And the result was implosion of negotiations. Strong leadership from John McCain.
Marc agrees and has a pretty good take on what actually happened in that meeting.
Andrew on McCain: I’m going to ride in on my white horse and then nap at the table. Mmmmm, naps.
Matt thinks the smart play is for Dems to go all in with a progressive deal, forcing Bush to either cave or cajole House Reps back to the table.
TPM reports that McCain’s ads will be up again Saturday, effectively ending the suspension of his campaign. I didn’t realize he had a preternatural ability to predict the future of the bailout, the failure of which to pass – you’ll remember – is the pretense for that suspension. That soothsaying will be really useful to have in a president. Or, alternatively, maybe his campaign “suspension” was just a giant, silly, impetuous stunt. We report, you decide!
Anonymous GOP lawmaker on resistance to the crisis among his colleagues: "For the sake of the altar of the free market system, do you accept a Great Depression?" Well put.
And now even the conservatives think Palin is out of her league.
Also, just a side note … this summer there seemed to be consensus that the only way for Obama to lose this election was if it was entirely about him. In other words, the Republican brand is SO weak right now, that a generic Democratic candidate probably had a better chance than the somewhat unique Obama. Do a quick scan of most media and blogs over the course of the last several weeks and count mentions of McCain or Palin vs. Obama or Biden. Thank you for you mavericky nonsense, John McCain.
No comments:
Post a Comment