On Campaign Trail, TARP Support Means Big Trouble For Incumbents -- Especially John McCain
When calls to Congress were running 99 to 1 against TARP, and members chose to support the banks and ignore their constituents, we warned of the impending backlash. Now it has arrived in force, and incumbents are quaking from Maine to Hawaii. The New York Times has the details in a new story this morning.
Photos of the guilty inside.
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WASHINGTON — The vote in 2008 to bail out Wall Street was framed as the only way to avert an economic meltdown and relieve financial institutions of their most poisonous holdings. For many members of Congress, it turns out that the vote itself was toxic.
Nearly two years after Congress approved the , the Bush administration’s $700 billion program to rescue the banking system at a moment when it appeared close to collapse, lawmakers from both parties who backed it remain haunted by the vote.
Republicans for months predicted that a backlash against the Democrats’ big health care law would be the defining issue in this year’s Congressional campaigns. But the bipartisan TARP vote has become a more resonant issue in a year when anti-incumbent, anti-Washington sentiment is running strong.
Democrats who voted for the bailout — which was championed by their own leaders along with President and Senator of Arizona, then the Republican presidential nominee — are now facing attacks from Republican challengers on the campaign trail. Republicans who voted for it are being accused of promoting big government and fiscal irresponsibility by candidates and other conservatives.
Emotions can run high over the subject. Lawmakers report being buttonholed over bailouts by confrontational constituents, and Senator , Republican of Utah, was jeered at a party convention by people chanting “TARP, TARP, TARP.”
“It became a litmus test of fidelity to free enterprise principles,” said Representative Bob Inglis, a South Carolina Republican who was crushed in a primary last month partly because of his vote in favor of the plan.
- "I did a 99-county tour, and in every single county the bailout came up."
Across the country, House and Senate challengers are hammering incumbents in both parties who voted for the bailout, in many cases lumping it together with the $787 billion economic passed months later under , as well as federal aid to automakers.
In Texas, Representative Chet Edwards, a 10-term Democrat, is facing a stiff challenge by Bill Flores, the former chief executive of an oil and gas company, who has assailed Mr. Edwards for his support of the bailout and also the continuing taxpayer subsidies for the mortgage giants and Freddie Mac.
“Chet Edwards votes for every bailout and against ending any bailout!” Mr. Flores wrote in an e-mail message to supporters, saying Mr. Edwards’s position runs counter to his efforts to convince voters that he is a “really a fiscal conservative.”
In Utah, Mr. Bennett, who was denied his party’s Senate nomination in his bid for a fourth term, was branded “Bailout Bob.”
- “People would walk by my booth and say ‘TARP, TARP, TARP, TARP!’ But when you tried to talk to them about it, they did not know any of the details,” he said in an interview. “They confused TARP and the stimulus plan. They confused TARP and the omnibus bill. They confused TARP and the president’s budget.”
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DB here. No confusion at the Daily Bail, Senator Bennett. TARP was a gift to bank bondholders at the expense of taxpayers and their children. Failed banks were propped up and their creditors escaped at 100 cents on the borrowed buck. Paulson, Geithner, and Bernanke made sure there was no pain for that exact group that deserved it most -- the reckless investors who provided the capital that allowed the banks to make highly-leveraged investments in toxic mortgage securities.
And Sen. McCain deserves a special place in bailout hell, considering that Paulson said recently that it was McCain's support that saved TARP from defeat, though McCain is now playing dumb and claiming that he was misled. The reality of course is that McCain is naturally dense, and had no idea what he was doing from the outset. Finance and John McCain go together like Chavez and Rush Limbaugh.
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Video: Pelosi tries to save TARP after the first failed vote -- September 2008
Jul 11, 2010 at 12:41 PM
Reader Comments (21)
"I was very impressed that candidate Obama was very concerned with what was going on and was very supportive," said the former Bush hand who is promoting his new book "On The Brink," in which he makes similar observations. "Candidate McCain, I will admit, gave me a few more anxious days and hours."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/07/hank-paulson-john-mccain_n_452637.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/09/us/politics/09arizona.html
« Sen. John McCain: 'I was misled on the TARP bailout' »
« Paulson On Meet The Press: If McCain Hadn't Gotten On Board, TARP Would Never Have Passed »
Ahhhh, the Colin Powell defense.
Best defenses/Made famous by...
Colin Powell (I was mislead or was it Cheney made me do it)
Bill Clinton (depends on what the definition of is is)
Hillary Clinton (in Bosnia ducking gunfire excuse about being tired)
John Edwards (cancer is not sexy and my wife hits me)
Tiger Woods (i am addicted to the bj)
Larry Craig (just, ahhhhh, taping my foot to the music and I got a wide stance)
Tom Cruise (love made me do it)
Kobe (the culture of commercial sports led to some backdoor loving)
and...
Obama (I can't get anything done because...hmmmm...what is he saying now?)
Michelle Obama (Why she is so angry...this is the first time in my adult lifetime I am proud of my country)
Rahm (ummm, bad choice of words, sorry Sarah Palin)
Robert Gibbs (he has no defense unless being an ass is a defense)
Geithner (I suck at Turbo Tax)
Bernanke (in this case, ignorance is bliss)
and...okay just for you DB...
Sarah Palin (Couric is predictable and boring - hmmmm, that might be a good defense)
Hmmmm....Really....hmmmmm...
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/07/06/politics/washingtonpost/main6650702.shtml
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/103165-poll-democratic-lawmakers-bear-brunt-of-anti-incumbent-fever
Ha ha ha ha, I can't wait Matt Damon!!! Is there still a one out of three chance or have the odds gotten better?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zH2H6pEndX0
throw them all out except ron paul...give the Republicans control and one more shot to cut spending...if they fail, then either revolution or a real, third party that represents the people...call it the people's party for fiscal sanity...end the wars...cut domestic spending...bring budgets back into the sanity zone...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Z5af1oTOkU
Get over it, didn't you get your wish???
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGETI_DEwIY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vI38hJ1m-5Y
John McCain needs to GO and JD Hayworth is not the answer!
Jim Deakin began campaigning almost 2 years ago, but because he is not the top down GOP pick he is being ignored.
Please check him out! JIM DEAKIN needs our support and will serve Arizona well!
http://jimdeakin.com/
We're at the stage where they can only be swayed by people holding up KALASHNIKOVS.