The McCain Meltdown

John McCain's mission-to-Washington gambit looks like a disaster so far. There's no agreement for a bailout plan. The progress that had been made earlier in the day on the Senate side is coming unglued by House Republicans who don't want to go along with the Paulson bailout.

According to multiple reports, McCain barely spoke in the White House meeting and so far seems to have offered nothing constructive to the Beltway negotiations that he was so eager to join. The one thing he could do that he hasn't done is to help persuade the House G.O.P. to get on board with some kind of plan. If he can do that, then this gambit's been worth it. But there's no sign that McCain has bridged the divide. Instead he seems to have widened the chasm.

To be fair, I think the plan was in real trouble whether or not McCain came back. The House Republican I heard from this afternoon, one who is in the midst of the negotiations, made it very clear that the G.O.P. House Conference was not on board with the plan. That's a big deal, McCain or no McCain.

But McCain certainly hasn't helped and now we're at a point where a deal seems unlikely tomorrow in time for the debate which means McCain will have to make another decision--whether to swallow his pride and show up for the Meeting in Mississippi or be the biggest no-show in the history of American politics. Since he doesn't seem to have added anything to the negotiations in Washington, it's hard to see why on earth he should show up for the debate with Barack Obama.

Incredibly, McCain has said that he hasn't read the Treasury plan--all three pages of it. Since this crisis began ten days ago, nothing McCain has done, from declaring the economy strong to calling for the illegal firing of Chris Cox to flailing about the bailout to shrilly trying to blame the crisis on Obama and finally to the debate-canceling gambit has been reassuring about the prospect of a McCain presidency. This is the 3 AM phone call and McCain is blowing it.

Matt Cooper

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