An idle political question about the bailout

Posted By Daniel W. Drezner Thursday, September 25, 2008 - 4:11 PM

The New York Times reports that, "Lawmakers indicated Thursday that they were close to hashing out an agreement on a proposed $700 billion bailout of the financial system, hours before a meeting at the White House to complete the deal." Here's my question -- given how McCain has played this, doesn't he have a massive incentive to prevent any consensus out until, oh, say, after Friday's debate? Ah, sure enough, we get to this paragraph:

Speaking at a gathering in Midtown Manhattan, Senator McCain, in comments that ran counter to those of Congressional Democrats, said on Thursday morning that no consensus had developed among lawmakers to support the bailout plan.

Of course, a consensus puts McCain in a real bind -- he can't claim to be exercising leadership if a consensus is happening without him. On the other hand, he can't exactly block consensus, cause that would look kind of political. The very interesting question of the day is what the Bush administration and congressional Republicans will do. Developing.... UPDATE: Ah, great minds think alike.... and then there's me and James Pethokoukis. He asks a similar question:

How the bailout turns! If John McCain came out against the Paulson Plan, effectively killing it, would he not a) likely vault back into the lead vs.Barack Obama by opposing a trillion dollar bailout—maverick style!—that voters hate even if they think it somehow necessary, b) lock up working-class, "Sam's Club" voters in places like Michigan, Pennsylvania and Ohio, and c) send the base into Palinesque waves of ecstasy since Newt Gingrich/Rush Limbaugh/ Conservative Blogosphere have been ripping the bailout to shreds? But wouldn't McCain also risk a) forever alienating wealthy economic conservatives in Manhattan and Connecticut, b) looking like he is stabbing the White House in the back, and c) sending the markets into a death spiral?

I have to think that last point is the one that matters. I don't doubt that the bailout is unpopular, but I'm betting that death spiral capital markets will cause a pretty rapid shift in public opinion. UPDATE: Politico's Martin Kady II reports on an agreement on "principles." This quote stood out:

Sen. Robert Bennett (R-Utah), the top GOP negotiator in the Senate, said, "We have a plan that will pass the House, pass the Senate and be signed by the president, and bring certainty to the markets."

Has McCain arrived in DC yet?

COMMENTS (5)

EXPLORE:POLITICS, BAILOUT, JOHN MCCAIN

I am suspending this blog until the financial crisis is solved, and I call on Brad DeLong to do the same

Posted By Daniel W. Drezner Wednesday, September 24, 2008 - 8:45 PM

Wait, you mean this only works for presidential candidates? Comment away on this. The policy wonk in me is flabbertgasted at the chutzpah involved in this move -- seriously, if you take all of his pronouncements about the financial crisis over the past two weeks and consider them together, and it's hard not to agree with Virginia Postrel. The politics junkie in me admires both the creativity and long-shot nature of the gambit as a way to change the media narrative. UPDATE: I agree with John Dickerson's take in Slate:

It's not clear what exactly McCain is going to do in Washington. He doesn't sit on any of the relevant committees and everyone is already deep in negotiations. Still, he's coming anyway. It doesn't make much logical sense. The only way to understand it is politically: In a presidential campaign, the surest sign that a candidate is playing politics on an issue is when he claims not to be playing politics on an issue. The only way for McCain to convince everyone that his intentions are 100 percent pure is for him to drop out of the race completely. A campaign doesn't end—and its distracting affects don't disappear—just because one candidate says so. It's hard to believe that McCain's actions would pass his own laugh test. In fact, he's often snickered at his fellow senators who come in at the eleventh hour to lend a hand after McCain has done the hard work. But the McCain campaign is past caring about how journalists (or colleagues) view his moves. He hopes the rest of the country will see this as a leadership moment.... Whether McCain's crazy gambit is seen as desperate or brilliant, it doesn't matter. Either way, it's probably not the last. The beneficial effects of the Palin Hail Mary lasted only a few weeks, and another adrenaline injection was needed. If this one doesn't work, that's OK—in due time they can try another razzle-dazzle play. And if it does work, that's great—in due time they can still try another razzle-dazzle play. It all makes the prospect of a McCain White House very exciting. So exciting, he might want to schedule periodic suspensions of his presidency to get anything done.

Apropos of a comment, I think we can label this the Favre-ization of the McCain campaign.

COMMENTS (15)

EXPLORE:POLITICS, JOHN MCCAIN

Quick hits on the McCain speech

Posted By Daniel W. Drezner Friday, September 5, 2008 - 3:22 AM

A few quick thoughts on John McCain's speech:

One the whole, it was a pretty flat speech -- not nearly as crisp as Palin's from last night. McCain stepped on some of his lines, and whenever I thought he was building some momentum, the energy stalled out. At times, towards the end, with the call for service, he seemed more like the grandfather who's allowed to prattle on at Thanksgiving dinner than a major-party candidate.
The reach out to Obama and his supporters seemed both graceful and savvy. It also raised an interesting point. Judging from the convention speeches, there's a surprising amount of overlap between the two: striving for energy independence, focusing on education, using the best ideas from both parties, reaching out across the aisle, emphasizing public service... does Barack Obama disagree with any of this?
The mention of David Petraeus was a bit odd. Mona Charen thinks it's telling that McCain mentioned him but none of the Democrats did. I always thought that active military commanders shouldn't be mentioned at political conventions, period. Readers, feel free to point out if I'm inventing a norm here.
I was grateful for the "Washington changed us" rhetoric, and a pledge to cut government spending. Um... which government programs?
My favorite part of the speech was McCain's take on coping with the global economy. It contained his only concrete proposal (reforming unemployment insurance) while also emphasizing their different takes on the global economy (Obama: protect old industries; McCain: prepare citizens for new industries). If my vote was based only on foreign economic policy, I'd be voting for McCain and it wouldn't be a close call.
Here's a semi-deep thought. McCain spent plenty of time bashing politicians and his opponents for acting in their self-interest, while he works for the national interest. Here's the thing: he knows that the market economy largely operates according to the former principle and not the latter principle, right?

Fire away!! UPDATE: One last thought. One of the interesting questions coming out of the convention is whether the GOP has brilliantly juggled contrasting themes or exposed some obvious contadictions in their fall campaign. On the one hand, maybe Sarah Palin can energize the base while John McCain can reach out to the median voter. On the other hand, it's kind of odd for Palin, Romney, Giuliani, et al to bash Barack Obama for being a community organizer right before John McCain's call for service.

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EXPLORE:POLITICS, JOHN MCCAIN

A parabolic theory of the interwebs

Posted By Daniel W. Drezner Monday, July 14, 2008 - 3:55 AM

Atrios chortles about many revelations from John McCain's New York Times interview, including this one:

Q: Do you use a blackberry or email? Mr. McCain: No.

What's interesting is that McCain is not the only luminary who fits this category. We've known for some time, for example, that Condoleezza Rice does not use e-mail; I would wager she does not use a Blackberry. It's not just Republicans. Gail Sheehy, in her Vanity Fair story on Hillary Clinton's campaign, reveals that, "Bill Clinton still doesn’t use e-mail or own a BlackBerry." Here's my question -- is is that shocking that a major party candidate for president, a secretary of state, and a former-head-of-state-turned-head-of-a-major-international NGO don't use the interwebs like you or me? To be sure, using the internet has always been strongly correlated with education and income. One would expect, therefore, that as one's professional standing rises, so does their e-mail access/Blackberry usage. However, I could also speculate that, after a certain point, the most precious commodity someone has is time, and therefore one can outsource aides to notify you of urgent e-mails and breaking news. Indeed, as one hits Davos-level elite status, I can see there being an incentive to free one's self of any tethers to the interwebs, giving off the appearance of not needing to be connected to the web 24/7. I honestly don't know -- it might just be that politicians like McCain, Rice and Clinton are outliers. Are they out of touch, too important for the Internet, or both?

COMMENTS (11)

EXPLORE:CULTURE, MEDIASPHERE, POLITICS, BILL CLINTON, BLACKBERRY, CONDOLEEZZA RICE, JOHN MCCAIN