Bailout: Good For the Country or McCain? Maybe Both
McCain
gained some needed ground in the polls when he bet on Sara Palin as his
VP pick. Soon after though, the Lehman and AIG monsters reared their
heads and suddenly took away McCain’s quick gains by scaring away those
swing voters in the polls from anything Republican.
Early on, we had plenty of Congressmen on both sides of the aisle calling for quick bailouts. Suddenly, bailout legislation talks stalled yesterday as pork starting creeping into the legislation and the knee-jerk reactions dissipated. This morning McCain announced his campaign suspension so he could return to Washington to work on a bailout plan.
Why? It looks like McCain is swinging for the fences with this move.
Is this bailout good for the people, or good for McCain? It depends on how McCain positions himself with this campaign suspension, because it could end up being good for both.
The markets are still waiting, and will be, until we get a proper bit of legislation drafted that appeals to a majority of the folks in DC, and subsequently the financial world. Every day that goes by with the markets waiting for this emergency legislation plays to Obama’s favor. McCain knows this. Obama knows this. It’s in the dems best interest to drag their feet as long as possible. We’ll see if we end up with a bipartisan deal.
Are
McCain and his advisers smarter than I thought? It’s a transparent
move to me, but Americans won’t care as long as there’s closure to the
economic “crisis”. John stands to gain in this scenario - he’ll likely
gain by looking like the leader over Barack by being the one to suggest
they halt the campaign to help broker a bailout deal “for the good of
the people”. When the markets get on track again, McCain will claim
credit for the bailout plan and he’ll surge ahead in the polls once
more.
It will be of some interest to see how George Bush approaches all
this in his national address tonight. I wonder if Bush will commend
McCain for suspending his campaign to work on the problem.
Obama wants us to stay focused on the economy. McCain wants to get away from the issue of the economy ASAP and get focused on national security. With this latest risky move from McCain, he may kill two birds and get credit for resolve. We’ll see how things pan out over the next week.
Notes