Let me game this out for you. First of all, we know that the deal is already close to coming together -- we knew that yesterday, and the AP says it today. But today John McCain says, " It has become clear that no consensus has developed to support the administration's proposal to meet the crisis. I do not believe that the plan on the table will pass as it currently stands, and we are running out of time." False!
The next step is going to be for McCain to pretend that he changed the bill in some meaningful way. Yesterday, when the two candidates released a joint statement that basically said nothing, Obama's campaign also released a list of five principles that the bill should include (after the jump) which the McCain camp had refused to add to the joint statement. As Dana reports, today, at the Clinton Global Initiative, John McCain discussed five principles (also after the jump) that he thinks should be included in the bill. Surprise! Four of the five are the same, down to duplicating Obama's language: "no Wall Street executive should profit from taxpayer dollars" and a "path for taxpayers to recover" their money.
The difference between the two statements? McCain has a principle stressing transparency in the creation of the legislation (good, yes, but since most of it's discussion has taken place at open hearings, not a huge issue) while Obama has a principle saying that "We cannot bail out Wall Street without helping millions of families facing foreclosure on Main Street." Hear, hear.
Why wouldn't the McCain campaign agree to at least the four principles they already have in common with the Obama camp? Because at least four of those principles are already likely to be included in the negotiated bill (oversight, an equity stake for taxpayers, no earmarks, no profit for executives). When it is eventually passed, no doubt McCain will point to his arrival as the reason the bill was amended. (Too cynical?) But if he does, don't believe it. Rep. Barney Frank, one of the people actually crafting the bill, probably has the best take on McCain's decision to return to Washington:
"We're going to have to interrupt a negotiating session tomorrow between the Democrats and Republicans on a bill where I think we are getting pretty close, and troop down to the White House for their photo op. I wish they'd checked with us."
-- Tim Fernholz
