It is utterly astonishing that the House will be voting on the bailout bill wihtin just a few hours, with none of the following having occurred:
- John McCain has not issued a definitive statement of his intent to vote for this bill;
- Republican House leaders have not publicly issued firm assurances regarding support from House republicans; and
- Harry Reid has not publicly stated that the Senate WILL NOT vote on the bill unless it receives substantial House republican support.
Absent the foregoing, Pelosi and Reid are leaving themselves, as well as Obama and the entire Democratic Party, extremely vulnerable. It is INCONCEIVABLE that gutter hustlers like McCain, Boehner, Putnam, Cantor and Blount could pass up an opportunity to stab the democrats in the back and bash the democrats for having passed this bill.
We're hearing that republican leaders in the House are predicting 60 to 70 republican votes in the House - not a majority, but substantial support. Let me predict right now that there will be fewer than 50 republican votes for the bailout bill in the House.
We heard John McCain yesterday suggest that he is generally inclined to support this bill. Let me predict right now that gamblin' John McCain will wait for the House to vote, wait for Obama to firmly signal his support for the bill, and then announce - SURPRISE! - that he is opposing the bailout bill.
One final prediction: after being stabbed in the back by House republicans and McCain, Harry Reid and Senate democrats will nonetheless overwhelmingly support this bill and assure its passage.
The stakes of this bailout vote cannot be overstated. The potential consequences for the presidential race cannot be overstated. If democrats permit McCain and the republicans to run as staunch opponents of bailing out Wall Street, and to paint the democrats as the party of Wall Street, the democrats will have taken the economic issue - Obama's biggest edge over McCain - and turned it into a liability.
If the democrats allow this bill to be passed with opposition from McCain and only token republican support in the House, we should demand Pelosi's and Reid's resignations. We should further let the Obama campaign know that they failed to manage democrats and the Hill, and failed to anticipate a perfectly predictable betrayal from the crime syndicate commonly referred to as the republican party.
This vote doesn't have to take place at 1:00 PM, or 2:00 PM. It doesn't have to take place at all this afternoon. And it absolutely must not take place until McCain and republican House leaders are on the public record with unequivocal statements of support for this bill and assurances that the bill will receive the support of more than 80 House republicans.
Maybe I'm paranoid. Maybe John McCain will be on our teevee in the next hour announcing his intention to vote for this bill later this week when the Senate meets. Maybe Boehner and Blount will materialize before the press later this morning stating that they have 80 to 90 votes among republicans in the House. But if these things don't happen, and the democrats pass this bill in the House with only token republican support, then our political leaders will have failed us completely. They will have risked Obama's campaign and the future of our country. And they will have done so even in the face of unmistakable signals from the republican party that it is prepared to stab the Democratic party in the back.
Speaker Pelosi, delay this vote. Make McCain, Boehner and Blount get on the record in support of this bill and with assurances of substantial republican support in the House. Otherwise, you and Harry Reid will personally bear the consequences. You favor accountability, don't you Madame Speaker?