The Senate has just approved the bailout of the McCain campaign. The 700 million takeover was introduced to the Senate as an amendment of Mental Health Bill S. 76203, and was approved by a 98-0 majority.
Intrade markets reacted with a sudden jump of PRES.REP08 by over 10 points. "Now it is up to the house to act", said an anonymous intrader, and warned: "The market is monitoring the events closely."
"It is outrageous, millions all around the country invest their time and donations into the campaign, and then those guys in Washington just screw it up", said Lindsey Graham, R-SC in his remarks before the vote. "The least we can do is make sure Rick Davis does not get to leave with a golden parachute", said Carla Fiorina in an CNN interview, who is likely to be apppointed as new CiC (candidate in charge) before end of this week. "It is unfortunate, but what got us into this mess is the Clinton-Feingold campaign finance overregulation."
Independent analysts saw different reasons for the collapse. "The campaign officers speculated on the smear-and-lying bubble, and when it collapsed, a whole carthouse of risk management constructions broke down", said one of the economists interviewed for this article. Warren Buffett had often warned of the instruments of derived truths and almost-truths as "weapons of political self-destruction".
Democrats were less enthusiastic about the bill. "This is not a perfect bill, but it is a vast improvement over the original bill presented to Congress by Dick Cheney.", said House speaker Pelosi according to prepared remarks. "We introduced a bipartisan Lieberman-Choburn oversight board, and Rick Davis' severange package can't actually be paid out to him personally. It will instead be paid to Davis Manafort, giving us much better control over taxpayers' money."
"These are extraordinary times for democracy in America", said President Bush in an earlier televised address. "It is a painful decision, but the consequences of inaction would be disasterous. America might be governed by a leftist-liberal dictatorship for many years to come. We have to unite in this time of crisis, reach across the aisle, and have to come to a bipartisan solution. We just cannot afford to give the enemies of our values and families an uncontested run to the presidency of the United States of America."
Senator McCain was not present for the vote in the Senate. Asked whether he supported it, he said: "Sure. It is one of the most horrendous Senate bills I have seen in my life, and, you know, during 5 years of my life I couldn't even see a single Senate bill." Aides of Sarah Palin announced that she will hold a press conference on the bailout soon.