McCain Can't Rally His Own Party 4 Votes
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| Mon, 09-29-2008 - 4:24pm |
McCain's own party doesn't listen to him. How is he supposed to "reach" across the aisle and "work" for the American people? Barack got 2/3 support. Which one has more clout? And once the American people vote out the GOP dead weight, more responsible GoP leadership should come. All McCain wants to do is point fingers, mark down names, and blame, blame, blame.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0908/14088.html
McCain takes credit for bill before it loses
By MIKE ALLEN | 9/29/08 3:37 PM EDT
“I've never been afraid of stepping in to solve problems for the American people, and I'm not going to stop now,†John McCain told a rally in Columbus, Ohio.
Photo: AP
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and his top aides took credit for building a winning bailout coalition – hours before the vote failed and stocks tanked.
The rush to claim he had engineered a victory now looks like a strategic blunder that will prolong the McCain’s campaign’s difficulty in finding a winning message on the economy.
Shortly before the vote, McCain had bragged about his involvement and mocked Sen. Barack Obama for staying on the sidelines.
“I've never been afraid of stepping in to solve problems for the American people, and I'm not going to stop now,†McCain told a rally in Columbus, Ohio. “Sen. Obama took a very different approach to the crisis our country faced. At first he didn't want to get involved. Then he was monitoring the situation.â€
McCain, grinning, flashed a sarcastic thumbs up.
“That's not leadership. That's watching from the sidelines,†he added to cheers and applause.
Wisely, in retrospect, McCain initially had been more modest. On Sunday, he said on ABC’s “This Week†that congressional negotiators deserve “great credit†for the bipartisan deal. “"It wasn’t because of me,†McCain said. “They did it themselves.â€
But at almost the same time, McCain senior adviser Steve Schmidt was saying on NBC’s “Meet the Pressâ€: “What Sen. McCain was able to do … was to help get all of the parties to the table. There had been announcements by Senate leaders saying that a deal had been reached earlier in the week. There were no votes for that deal.
“Sen. McCain knew time was short and he came back, he listened and he helped put together the framework of getting everybody to the table, which was necessary to produce a package to avoid a financial catastrophe for this country.â€
On Monday morning, McCain campaign communications director Jill Hazelbaker said on Fox News that the deal would not have happened “without Sen. McCain.â€
“Sen. McCain interrupted his campaign, suspended his campaign activity to come back to Washington to get Republicans around a table,†Hazelbaker said. “Without Sen. McCain, House Republicans would not have appointed a negotiator, which would not have moved this bill forward.
“It’s really Sen. McCain who got all parties around a table to hammer out a deal that hopefully is in the best interests of the American taxpayer.â€
After the vote, commentators were harsh. MSNBC’s Chris Matthews said: “He’s like a cavalry commander who said ‘Charge!’ and the Republicans went into retreat.â€
Edited 9/29/2008 4:59 pm ET by niteowl08


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((What this country needs right now is a STRONG leader and both of the candidates dropped the ball. ))
Uh...who is POTUS? Yeah, Bush43...no leadership, indeed. The democrats through over half of their support behind this bill. The GOP failed to honor their agreement. Not surprised.
<What I didn't know until today was that the democrat and republican leadership had been working hard to make sure that they had the votes; and when they knew they had them, they put the bill up for a vote.
Sopal
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You are talking good sense.
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But...95 democrats didn't give their support.
Don't hold me to this, but I think it did.
Obama hasn't talked about blame and excuses - that would be dear old Johnny Boy.
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Are you serious? They got ticked off by something someone said and voted against the bill??? So because their little feelings were hurt they let the American investors lose 1.2 Trillion dollars???? Whatever happened to 'sticks and stones' my goodness we teach our children not to let what others say about us get under our skin and these grown ups can have a little temper tantrum and cost the American public 1.1 trillion dollars over 'hurt feelings'???
There is more than enough blame to go around I am sure, but Johnny Boy had no problem injecting politics into the situation at every corner - including an ad out today which implied he 'knew' it wouldn't pass before the vote. I find it interesting that not one representative from Arizona voted for this bill - so Johnny Boy was manning the phones was he - to what end? Enough already! I only hope I can continue to watch his numbers fall.
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