Trailhead: A campaign blog.

Nancy Pelosi’s $700 Billion Speech

House Republicans and the McCain campaign are currently blaming Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s speech today introducing the bailout package for its failure. According to this narrative, she managed to alienate a dozen Republicans who otherwise would have voted for the bill.

But read Pelosi’s speech. (Transcript here.)* She wasn’t bashing Republicans; she was bashing Bush. She said the $700 billion price tag “tells us only the costs of the Bush administration’s failed economic policies—policies built on budgetary recklessness, on an anything-goes mentality, with no regulation, no supervision, and no discipline in the system.” Later, she thanked Democratic leaders Barney Frank and Rahm Emanuel while conspicuously omitting minority leader John Boehner. But she did thank Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. Doesn’t he count?

Granted, it may have sounded unpleasant to sensitive Republican ears. But GOP members can hardly object to Bush-bashing—in fact, many of them have done it themselves. Vulnerable GOP congressmen have scrambled to distance themselves from the president on Iraq, immigration, Katrina, and now economic policy. Sure, Pelosi could have been more gracious to Boehner and other Republicans who voted for the package, especially after such delicate negotiations. But her speech also showed Democrats that you can be for the bailout and still run on a Bush-bashing economic message. It’s a message you’d think would resonate with Republicans, too.

So what’s the advantage of the “hurt my feelings” excuse? Not only does it defy belief—does anyone really think 12 members of the House of Representatives actually changed their minds on this bill because of a speech?—but it allows Obama to take the high road and look presidential. His campaign decried McCain’s “angry and hyperpartisan statement”—McCain had blamed the failure on Obama and fellow Democrats—but refused to point fingers back. “Now is the time for Democrats and Republicans to join together and act in a way that prevents an economic catastrophe.”

In the short term, at least, the advantage is Obama’s. First, it means the financial crisis is likely to stay in the news for a while longer—and he enjoys a huge margin over McCain when the issue is the economy. Second, McCain explicitly injected himself into the bailout negotiations, thereby lashing himself to the results. He was taking credit for this bill before it passed. Does that mean he should get blamed for its failure?

*UPDATE: Turns out Pelosi ad-libbed quite a bit of the speech, including this potentially divisive line: "... Democrats believe in a free market ... but in this case, in its unbridled form as encouraged, supported by the Republicans — some in the Republican Party, not all — it has created not jobs, not capital, it has created chaos." See the video here.

No Way To Begin a Debate

The first question of tonight’s debate should be for John McCain, and it should be this: What were you thinking?

Let’s review: It was precisely 2 p.m. on Wednesday when McCain issued a statement saying he was suspending his campaign, and asking to delay tonight’s debate, so he could “return to Washington” to work with both parties on the Wall Street bailout plan. He was clear about the goal: “We must meet until this crisis is resolved,” he said. Then, at 11:30 a.m. today, he declared the suspension lifted. Crisis resolved? Not exactly. But McCain said he was “optimistic that there has been significant progress toward a bipartisan agreement.” He will be in Mississippi tonight to debate Barack Obama.

From crisis to optimism in less than 48 hours: That’s leadership! Or maybe not. There’s a better word to describe McCain’s behavior between his two announcements.

First, it should be noted that he didn’t really suspend his campaign. His campaign asked TV networks to stop running ads, but some still aired. Sarah Palin still attended public events. Surrogates and campaign aides continued to boost McCain and ding Obama. And McCain himself still held an interview with Katie Couric (though he canceled on David Letterman, much to Dave’s chagrin). Then there’s the length of time it took him to get to the White House after his announcement—more than 24 hours. Then there’s what he did when he got there—upset a bipartisan agreement that appeared to be moving along well, remain mostly silent during the key meeting with Obama and President Bush, blame Democrats for the mess-up, and accuse Obama of “posturing.” His final act was to skip off to Mississippi for the debate.

Editorial boards and most other observers declared the decision a mess, especially after the Thursday meeting in which bipartisan negotiations collapsed. Even Mike Huckabee, a McCain booster, called McCain’s gambit a “huge mistake.” (That said, Newt Gingrich approved, calling McCain’s decision “the greatest single act of responsibility ever taken by a presidential candidate.”)

But despite all the talk about his campaign suspension, McCain’s bigger mistake may have been lifting it and agreeing to debate Obama. Initially, McCain promised to boycott the debate barring “consensus on legislation” to address the bailout. Needless to say, that hasn’t happened. What has happened is that a general agreement on the broad strokes of the bailout package has fallen apart; House Republicans who had earlier seemed amenable to the bailout have revolted, possibly to make it look as if McCain swooped in and saved the day; and talks have “imploded” thanks largely to the arrival of both presidential candidates on Capitol Hill.

McCain’s assessment of all this in a statement this morning? “Significant progress.”

Take it away, Jim Lehrer.