Duh of the day: McCain adviser admits bailout stance was a “blunder”
John McCain’s fatal screw-up of the bailout bill was a final nail in the campaign coffin. Glenn Reynolds and I discussed this very point on PJTV yesterday. Now, McCain adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin admits the gobsmackingly obvious: Their aimless, principle-less lurching on the issue was a “blunder.” Via Jeff Poor at the Business and Media Institute:
Both McCain and President-elect Barack Obama voted for the bill, which has taken on a different role since being promoted as a measure that would have given the Secretary of the Treasury the authority to purchase the troubled assets thought to be behind the current financial crisis.
Holtz-Eakin said it was a move of desperation because the campaign was taking a lot of criticism for not being more proactive at the time.
“Financial markets were falling apart,” Holtz-Eakin said. “We were in a terrible position as a campaign in trying to figure out whether to continue to just take hits–which we were–or to try to do something about it when the bailout bill was stalled. We elected to go do something about it. It didn’t pay off as a campaign largely because getting that bill through was not helpful.”
He advised the audience, which included several economists and policy analysts, to evaluate the strategy if confronted with having to choose between politics or core policy beliefs.
“If anyone is ever in a comparable position before us, take the time–or again in the future, take the time to step back and ask, ‘Is this a good policy move? Will it really help?’” he said.
The bailout legislation, which was promoted by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson as a do-or-die vote, has been roundly criticized by Republican members of Congress. Holtz-Eakin explained this bill was something McCain normally wouldn’t have supported.
“That was the key strategic error that we really made,” Holtz-Eakin added. “Had we stayed away from Washington, stayed away from being identified with that bill – which was ultimately against the John McCain brand– that’s not a bill he normally would support– we would have been better served in the long run, I believe. But, that financial market meltdown combined with bad strategic decisions, I think, was a real crippling combination of events.”
All together now: DUUUUUUH!
And now McCain wants to team up with Obama to “fix up the country?”
No thank you.
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McCain brand? “A maverick is an unbranded range animal…”
Since when has McCain had a brand?
Next time, let’s make sure our candidate has a conservate brand and wears it proudly.
maybe we can get rid of McCain sooner than 2010…prehaps Obama will pick a grovelling, bipartisan McCain for Sec. of Defense…
At the rate things are Christian Soldier, if we conservatives DON’T say no to the LOTE we might as well pack it up and go home.
Two things NEED to happen between now and 2012:
1. Our Presidential Primary system needs to be changed drastically…I’m sick and tired of the Eastern U.S. disenfranchising us out West and elsewhere. Candiadates should give us 3 months to let us get to know them via interviews and campaigning, and then we vote at the same time nationwide.
2. Closed Primaries in All 50 (yes 50) states.
If we as conservatives cannot get these reforms enacted, then the Republican party has no hope…and the dems will stuff the ballot boxes with another worthless RINO.
Of course it was exactly the kind of bill McCain would normally support – a “bipartisan” bill with the support of the media and with the conservative wing of the GOP against it. How could he NOT support it?
Open season on RINO’s people, no hunting license needed, no tags, no limit. We got to get these people herded into the Demoncat party before there is no America left to save.
And the mindless chanting of “RINO’s” by RINO’s continues…
It is the democrats most far-fetched dream come true when republicans start calling each other “RINO’s”…
This just in: we have Obama because morons stayed at home instead of going in and voting, because they had been hearing OTHER morons calling the choices “RINO’s.”
So those of you who stayed home or threw your vote away because of the effluence you read here pat yourselves on the backs for being so “pure”. You damaged the country with your self righteous stupidity.
McCain pushed for the bailout because the Republican Main Street Partnership, of which he is a member, called for it.
What exactly is the RMSP? Well, have a look at their website.
Yes, the RMSP was founded with the explicit purpose of preventing the GOP from moving to the right.
Some notable members of the RCMP include Warran Rudman and John Danforth. The group screams “RINO”. Membership in it should disqualify anybody from a leadership position in the Republican party.
Among the RCMP’s members – Micheal Steele.
More from their site.
John McCain is one of these people. He’s not one of us.
Well, they’ll just have to delay that dream, Bill, since Republicans (quite correctly) only cite RINOs as being RINOs. If the RINOs/Democrats In Deed can’t take it they’ll just have to head out the ol’ kitchen door and make sure it doesn’t hit ‘em on their backsides on the way out.
There *is* a silver lining in Obama winning: McCain is not going to be our next president.
Actually, Bill, it’s the Democrat’s most far-fetched dream when Republicans start VOTING WITH THEM AND HELP THEM CRAFT LEGISLATION AND SMEAR CONSERVATIVES WHO OPPOSE THEM.
FYI, I voted for McCain, so I guess I don’t fall in that category of “morons” so disenchanted with McCain that they’d be happy with Obama winning to “spite the face,” to mix analogies.
Now that the election is over, I don’t want to see the GOP lurch to the left. We HAD a moderate this time and it didn’t do us any good. Obama won a lot of people with his BS “tax cut,” a conservative principle, of 95% of America. You and I know he didn’t mean it, but people respond well to tax cutting, not to more government and “wealth spreading,” a comment which if it had been made a few months prior, would have changed the face of this election. Yes, just a few months, as despite the “decisive victory,” it really was as close as that, as people kept looking to McCain to provide a reason to not vote for inexperienced Obama. Unfortunately, McCain’s best argument, with his moderate and at times liberal record, was “I’m not really that much like him.” Democrat-lite empowers the real deal to gather the votes of those who don’t see much difference between the two.
At what point will they also realize that throwing Palin under the bus was not such a good idea either?
They still don’t get it.
The right thing to do was not to “stay away from being identified with that bill”.
The right thing to do was to actively lead the opposition to that bill.
The House of Representatives initially voted “No” on the bailout. Then a highly questionable Constitutional “loophole” was used to re-initiate the bill in the Senate (as an “amendment” to a totally unrelated bill which had been passed previously passed in the house).
When an amendment is multiple times the size of the original bill, it’s not an amendment at all… it’s a coup of the original bill’s purpose. Hence, the bailout began, unconstitutionally, in the Senate.
Many Republicans in the Senate and House followed the lead of their leaders… President Bush, John McCain, and GOP House Minority Leader John Boehner, who all supported the bailout.
Imagine, if you will, that our Republican Party Presidential nominee was a man who stood boldly on principle against the bailout. The Republicans in the Senate and House who “follow the leader” would likely have voted against the bailout.
Now, who was a Republican Presidential candidate who stood boldly on principle against the bailout?
Mike Huckabee.
On November 20th, 2008 at 11:02 pm, purplepeep said:
These categorical propositions that you are using don’t quite work in a country of 300 million people. No, we have had idiotic blowhards who have made themselves the arbiters of republicanism declaring anyone they disagree with (rightly or wrongly) to be a “RINO”. Many of these same idiots stayed home or threw their votes away on moonbats, misfits, truthers and circus clowns.
So what right does someone have to call someone else a RINO when they are doing their best to give power to the democrats?
Listening to reasoning like that is why I can’t eat salt anymore.
In order to win elections you need to get votes. Encouraging voters to “head out the ol’ kitchen door” isn’t a good strategy to that end. Further, if the hard right is just going to sit on it’s ass because it doesn’t get lockstep marching from the rest of the electorate then it is just going to be ignored and that really will push the party toward the center because that is the only way it will be able to survive.
On November 20th, 2008 at 11:25 pm, Wellsy said:
Even a stopped clock is right twice a day, what if, theoretically, the democrats happened to be right on something? Should the republicans oppose them? Isn’t that just being the “opposite” party? Should they never work together? Ever read “The Zax” by Dr. Seuss?
Now sure, Harry Reid (et al) is a miserable traitor whose just reward I can’t outline here without a visit from the FBI… But giving the little she-dog more power isn’t a way to thwart him.
Nope, you tried to make the best out of a bad situation. Just remember that some here (Including the host) were doing their best to make the situation worse… with predictable results. Insisting on an unelectable ideologue for next time out will just get the same result.
Bill Grant
Sure. But having people like you and McCain in the party costs it votes. I refuse to support a political party in which people like McCain have a leadership role.
On November 21st, 2008 at 2:08 pm, flenser said:
So I cost the republicans the election by being a republican!
I have to admit, as a fellow mean, bitter bastard I have to give grudging admiration at just how corrosive you can be but your logic leaves a lot to be desired.
Great news: You got Obama.