Ambinder sez: "In any event, both Obama and McCain seem to have settled into a bipartisan groove, working, separately, but -- finally -- in the same direction."
Er, finally? If you check their public statements, neither candidate has ever really disagreed about the bill. In fact, both candidates offered the same criticisms of the bailout bill. When McCain dramatically swept into Washington, he didn't have anything to say at the conference table because he had the same concerns as the Dems. For better or worse, Obama has resisted the urge to follow his more liberal inclinations to make this bill more progressive by addressing the foreclosures at the root of the problem and offering a adjunct stimulus package, and McCain has resisted the urge to follow his rightward inclinations by outwardly opposing the bill, like the conservative House GOP. McCain's grandstanding, however, gave the House Republicans traction to defeat the bill yesterday, making him look a silly in retrospect. That's why his attacks against Obama and the Democrats have fallen so flat today.
Nonetheless, both candidates have been on the same page on the bailout bill for a while, which is part of why the economics portions of last week's debate was so tepid -- I recall Obama at one point saying something like, "we haven't seen the text yet," a bipartisan excuse not to be specific. The two candidates have different overall economic narratives, both about what the economy needs in the long term and why the crisis is happening, but neither one has moved much beyond beltway CW in terms of the immediate response to the financial crisis.
--Tim Fernholz
