Hard to believe the House Republican leadership would actually risk scuttling a bailout deal to, uhhh, bail out His Maverickyness' faltering campaign, but that appears to be what's happening behind the scenes tonight.
You can understand the stratagem, though only in the most short-sighted and self-interested terms. There's a great wave of resentment and anger engulfing the populace right now over this deal. Liberals hate it. Conservatives hate it. Everybody hates it. Hell, I hate it too. I am certain that McCain and his people are gambling (what, again?) that they can ride the crest of this populist wave all the way to the White House in November by re-casting themselves as scourges of Wall Street and champions of the common man. And in any other election year, they might well have been able to pull off the charade. And who knows, they still might now. But I think a number of factors at play this year would suggest, strongly, that this is a surefire loser of a bet.
1. Yes, Americans are pissed off about bailing out Wall Street, but Americans---heavily mortgaged working-class Americans in particular---also crave stability and security in times of turmoil. They want to know that their jobs will still be waiting for them tomorrow, that their company health insurance will still carry them until they get their kid's braces paid off in three months, that they won't be arbitarily foreclosed on by some lender that declared insolvency this morning. What happens if McCain actually convinces his comrades to scotch the bailout compromise, and the Dow dumps 500 points the next day in response? And another 400 the day after that? Will His Maverickyness still look like a man of high principle, or an arsonist in a fireworks factory?
2. McCain has lost his most crucial base. No, not the neocons, but the media. It all started with the media-bashing GOP convention and has continued to the present day. So far, he's gotten a free pass on his pivotal enabling role in our last National Economic Meltdown---the Keating Five scandal twenty years ago. Do you think the moratorium will hold if he tries to reinvent himself as Wall Street's Worst Nightmare® for the next thirty days? For some reason, I doubt it. The man has simply made too many enemies at this point.
3. Barack Obama has staked his campaign to the premise---however dubious---of post-partisan politics devoid of the usual party loyalties and ideological infighting. A lot of people admire him for that. A lot of people---around 25 percent of the public, give or take---still admire President Bush, too. So when the photos start appearing on front pages across the country of Dear Leader and Secretary Paulson and Chairman Bernanke shaking hands with Obama, and Harry Reid and Chris Dodd, and maybe a sane Republican or two such as Dick Lugar or Chuck Hagel, how does this not burnish Obama's image in the larger public eye as a post-partisan reformer who can work past party allegiances to solve intractable problems and get results, while McCain, empty-handed, continues to rail against a problem most Americans no longer want to hear about?
4. Sarah Palin. The longer she is on the ticket, the greater a liability she becomes, no matter what McCain does. Now, onward to Oxford!
---Vitelius
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