| The bailout bill is driving some odd alliances in the Senate today. Jon Tester just released a statement that the bill "doesn't deserve my vote," while our senior Senator Max Baucus has been one of the people leading the efforts to pass it.
I haven't had a chance to digest the Senate version under consideration today. My gut is that if I was in Washington, I'd probably vote against it, but I can also understand why Max would support it.
When I've been knocking doors lately, the bailout bill inevitably comes up quite often. The voters I'm talking to sound a lot like what you'd expect -- looking for a solution, frustrated by the cost, but wanting Congress to make sure this doesn't spread to the rest of the economy.
In that environment, most members of Congress face the options they're facing right now: either vote for a mediocre bill because it is better than nothing and we need to do something or vote against a mediocre bill because it is too friendly to the rich bastards who mucked this up in the first place.
Daily Kos has a round up of who is coming down on which side with some rather interesting pairings appearing.
But it should be no surprise that this bill is causing some weird divisions because it is not a stereotypical ideology question. To some extent, the best predictor of how someone will vote on this bill is whether the person is an a) sit down and make things work even if they're imperfect or a b) populist rager who works to push the system closer to perfection by fighting hard against it. Our country needs both those things. Any observer of Montana politics also knows that Baucus is more the former and Tester more the latter.
Unsurprisingly, both Clinton and Obama are in the first camp. My guess is McCain would be there, too, today, but would possibly or even probably have been a no vote if he wasn't running for President.
Edwards, I should say, would almost certainly be a no vote if he was still in the Senate. |
