Monday September 29, 2008, 7:10 pm
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) hasn’t been involved in the deep negotiations over details of the bailout bill. In fact, he was largely silent during a meeting with President Bush and top congressional leaders. As the AP reported, the one role that both Democrats and Republicans alike were counting on McCain to play was to “deliver GOP votes” for the bailout bill.

Over the past week, McCain’s (R-AZ) campaign has already been to touting the senator’s success and casting his role as pivotal to bringing the parties together. His supporters have hit the airwaves, giving McCain credit for negotiating a deal:

“[T]his bill would not have been agreed to had it not been for John McCain. … But, you know, this is a bipartisan accomplishment, a bipartisan success. And if people want to get something done in Washington, they just watch John McCain.” — Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, 9/29/08

“Earlier in the week, when Senator McCain came back to Washington, there had been no deal reached. … What Senator McCain was able to do was to help bring all the parties to the table, including the House Republicans.” — Senior adviser Steve Schmidt, 9/28/08

“But here are the facts, and I’m not overselling anything. The fact is that the House Republicans were not in the mix at all. John didn’t phone this one in. He came and actually did something. … You can’t phone something like this in. Thank God John came back.” — Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), 9/28/08

“Before John McCain suspended his campaign yesterday, the situation that we’re looking at today looked very different then. After he showed leadership and called for bipartisanship, for us to partisanship aside and tackle this solution head on, here we are.” — Spokesman Tucker Bounds, 9/25/08

However, today Republicans failed to deliver the 70-100 votes needed from conservatives for the deal to pass. On the Republican side, 133 lawmakers voted against the bill; just 65 voted for it.

If the McCain campaign was willing to take credit for the success of the bill, does McCain also deserve credit for its failure?

Monday September 29, 2008, 7:11 pm
Politics in the Zeros: Spread the meme. Republicans are the party that wrecked America. John McCain’s long history with bank failures and financial scandals makes him uniquely ‘qualified’ to speak to the current crisis.

The next time a Republican friend says McCain is ready to Regulate the financial world... Refer them to ProgressiveAccounting.org
for a really long list of all the DEREGULATION McCain has supported over the past 26 years to get us into this mess.

Then suggest a vote for Obama.

Tuesday September 30, 2008, 4:29 am
Why
Conservatives Led the Fight Against the Bailout DealTheir revolt was anything but an act of courage to
protect American families. Read more »