John McCain Bold Leadership
September 24th, 2008 at 07:53pm KMorrison
With the markets in turmoil and a bill and a bailout package up for debate in Congress, Senator McCain has suspended his campaign and returned to Washington to work on the bill. Last night prior to Senator McCain’s decision to return to Washington ABC’s George Stephanopoulos reported,
ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos reports: If Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain doesn’t vote for the Bush administration’s $700 billion economic bailout plan, some Republican and Democratic congressional leaders tell ABC News the plan won’t pass.“If McCain doesn’t come out for this, it’s over,” a Top House Republican tells ABC News.
A Democratic leadership source says that White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten has been told that
Democratic votes will not be there if McCain votes no — that there is no deal if McCain doesn’t go along.
With the ball in Senator McCain’s court, and concerns about the President’s current proposal, Senator McCain is heading back to Washington. The debates and future campaign events are in limbo, as this bold decision has put a priority on the economic package.
Bold Leadership from John McCain
Entry Filed under: John McCain
9 Comments Add your own
1. Joe | September 24th, 2008 at 8:24 pm
KM,
As expected, I completely disagree.
McCain and Obama going back to DC to “work” on this? Neither are on a committee that this affects. All they have to do is be there for the final vote (assuming McCain remembers how to get to the Senate floor and how to actually vote).
What SHOULD happen is they should debate about the ECONOMY!
They need to debate how they plan on steering the country out of this mess.
I know you are going to call me bias towards Obama, but I honestly think this is going to backfire on McCain and people are going to see thru it. I hope Obama holds his guns and keeps saying this needs to be debated.
On a side note…….. Bush looked like a deer in headlights tonight.
2. Joe | September 24th, 2008 at 8:26 pm
By the way… they are saying the Oct 2 VP debate should be delayed too.
Are you kidding me?????? Why? does Palin have to go to DC to take care of this crisis too?
I really think this plan fully backfires.
3. Eric T | September 24th, 2008 at 10:03 pm
Joe- you said
“What SHOULD happen is they should debate about the ECONOMY!”
Joe I agree, They should debate ideas for where they are going to get the money for this bailout.
Is it going to mean skyhigh gas prices and heating bills for taxes, and, to fire up Wall St and impress global investors? Is it going to come out of our paychecks right away?
Maybe they should just raise corporate taxes since this is a Wall St issue?
Or take it back from some of these folks that made millions and millions cooking up these scams.
4. Joe | September 25th, 2008 at 11:11 am
Eric,
Glad to see we can agree on something.
McCain “suspending” his campaign and trying to delay the debate is just silly. For a man who admittedly doesn’t really understand economics, what exactly is he going to add in DC? Fine, go meet with President Bush (he doesn’t know economics either!). Meet with him, they can all have the photo-op and make it look like Bush-McCain and Obama are all working hard.
I think the only intelligent thing to do is to continue being on the stump talking about your plans for the economy! They should hold the debate and instead of this one being on foreign policy, make this one about the economy. Now is not the time to stop talking to the American people about this.
The people want to know what these guys are going to do to avert this in the future when one of them is President. The other 531 congressmen and women and the Administration have enough people to hammer out the details of the current plan. There is no need to inject the Presidential campaigns into this just muddying things more than they already are.
Both Obama and McCain should absolutely be there for the final Senate debate and vote on this bailout, but sitting there adding no value for the next week is just foolish.
As for this bailout… there has GOT to be something to protect the people on this. Bush’s plan of “just give us the $700 billion and let us do what we want with it” just can not happen. They have been proven to be completely inept at anything. I heard one economist say that this should be done as a very low-interest loan to the banks and not just a bailout. I’ve also heard others say that the US Govt should get preferred stock in the companies that get bailed out. So when things turn around and the market starts going up, we have something that will help “pay back” the money. There are a lot of ideas out there.
Did anyone see what some Republicans actually said we should do? They want to suspend the capital gains tax! Are you freaking kidding me????? What the hell is that going to do to solve this crisis?
Then you wonder why people are more confident with Democrats when it comes to the economy.
5. KMorrison | September 25th, 2008 at 11:13 am
Your guess is as good as mine on how this will all play out, but it was a bold move.
I do think the bill needs to be explained better. President Bush at least started that, but I agree it was not a compelling preformance. I don’t love the idea of a bailout, but I’m not sure there is a suitable alternative.
As far as bias - I write for a blog called ‘Blogs for John McCain’s Victory’. I’m not claiming there should be no bias, I’m saying organizations as well as individuals should own up to it when it exists. I fully admit I’m in the tank, I just think several reporters at CNN and MSNBC should admit they are too.
6. Joe | September 25th, 2008 at 12:55 pm
Newt Gingrich:
Excuse me… I think I just threw up in my mouth a little bit.
Call it bold. Call it “maverick-ey”. Call it whatever, but it is a political move regardless what you call it.
This is not to resolve a crisis, it is to make it look like he is taking a stand and have people talk about it.
7. KMorrison | September 25th, 2008 at 1:21 pm
It is what it is. Rep’s will like it, Dems won’t and time will tell for the rest. Harry Reid was the one who stated how important it was for McCain to be involved, now he is.
8. Joe | September 25th, 2008 at 4:04 pm
I think you have that wrong on what Harry Reid wanted…
So I guess you can say that Harry Reid told McCain “Thanks, but no thanks” (sorry, is that copyrighted?) on coming back to DC to “help”.
9. Joe | October 3rd, 2008 at 11:08 am
Odd……….. no posts about the debates other than this one. Nothing of substance about what McCain said. Nothing about Palin’s performance. Nothing about saying that Obama or Biden lied about this or that. Just one post showing an ad that twists Obama’s words about McCain being right about something.
KM, Geoff & Matt,
Are you guys just giving up? Is there nothing positive to talk about regarding McCain/Palin? Are you losing faith??
My take (for what its worth):
McCain-Obama:
Nobody did any damage. Both were pretty good. Obama spoke more to McCain and the American people. McCain spoke more to the moderator and never made eye-contact with Obama. Neither delivered any kind of knockout blow and neither fell on their face. Can’t wait for the next two.
Palin-Biden:
Call me biased, but Biden won that debate. Palin did well (better than I expected), but Biden had more substance, more intricate knowledge and made more points. Palin, while showing confidence, didn’t answer questions asked, she was reciting what she had practiced regardless if it was a response to a question or not. There were times she was staring directly into the camera and just spouting words. She did it with confidence, but not with depth. Her quirkiness and folksy talk was probably a big hit with the average person, but the depth of knowledge she showed on a lot of topics were obvious. Again, call me biased, but her “folksy” talk got a bit old pretty quickly. We’ve just gone thru 8 years of a President that “spoke like a common folk” and was a guy that “you want to have a beer with”. It is time to get people in the office that actually make thoughtful comments and not someone that has nothing but being just likeable as a person.
Biden went into depth about Hamas and Hezbollah. He was solid in all topics. Answered to Palin’s criticisms and made more points that McCain hasn’t come up with anything new from the current Administration.
In both cases, McCain needed some kind of a game-changing event in one or both of the debates and didn’t get it. Both debates were entertaining and interesting. Neither did anything to alter the direction of voters.
So the lack of posts could mean a few things…
1. You are all on vacation.
2. You are all giving up on defending how “ready” Palin is
3. You are all giving up that McCain has valid ideas of righting this ship that is the country
4. You are all trapped up a very heavy object and can’t get to the computer!
BTW… what are you opinions of McCain completely pulling out of Michigan and at the same time falling behind further in Pennsylvania?
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