McCain's Bailout Problem

An interesting thing happened with Sen. McCain's bailout vote and how he handled the situation. He created competing messages for himself. On the one hand he'll "end earmarks" and on the other he votes for this bailout despite all of the added pork. Now as we've discussed before (in more detail the coming days) this bailout was needed. At the end of the day, some form of bailout is better than nothing.

Here is the problem: every poll taken showed the general public not wanting this bailout. Some didn't because it "only helped the rich" while others said "this is socialism, no socialism". When he "suspended" his campaign for barely 24hrs in order to go to Washington "until the deal is done", that showed him leading the charge for this bailout, it showed him essentially as the champion of making this happen.

Now this had to of infuriated the base who were the ones screaming "no socialism". On top of that however, you had even non-"no socialism" voters not wanting this bill. Then the media gets a hold of the bailout. They immediately point out every dumb piece of pork added to the bill, every earmark. Now, not only did McCain "suspend" his campaign to make this bailout happen and vote for it, now he voted and supported it despite it having far too many (one was too many) pieces of pork in it.

Without a better job from the media and our candidates and our president explaining the necessity of it, his leadership in this and his voting for it will hurt him from here on out. Of course Sen. Obama voted for this bailout as well but in the general publics eyes he has never been Mr. No Earmark nor did he suspend his campaign to guarantee this got done. Sen. Obama was actually brilliant in being as hands off as he was in terms of not rushing back to Washington. This is a situation where what Mr. McCain did should get him more credit but instead the opposite is happening, he is hurting because of this. This is for the simple reason that right now, the general public didn't want this bailout and he supported/lead the charge for it.