Dead End?

AP, which has bent over backwards to tilt headlines and framing in Gramp's campaingn, sees things going very bad for him now....

Analysis: With bailout, McCain reaches dead end

Last Wednesday, McCain suspended his presidential campaign to insert himself into a $700 billion effort to rescue America's crumbling financial structure. In so doing, he tied himself far more tightly to the bill than did his Democratic opponent, Barack Obama.

Then, as the bailout plan appeared ready for passage Monday in the House, McCain bragged that he was an action-oriented Teddy Roosevelt Republican who did not sit on the sidelines at a moment of crisis.

Within hours, however, the measure died in the House mainly at the hands of McCain's own Republicans.

After the House vote, Obama — campaigning in swing-state Colorado — declared that McCain had "fought against commonsense regulations for decades, he's called for less regulation 20 times just this year, and he said in a recent interview that he thought deregulation has actually helped grow our economy."

"Senator, what economy are you talking about?" Obama said.

Sensing Obama's advantage, spokesman Bill Burton piled on:
"This is a moment of national crisis, and today's inaction in Congress as well as the angry and hyper-partisan statement released by the McCain campaign are exactly why the American people are disgusted with Washington."

McCain has been routinely wrong-footed on the slumping U.S. economy throughout the campaign, starting last year when he said he was not as up on that subject as he would like to be.

Polls consistently have shown voters place greater trust in Obama to pull the country out of a financial crisis that has not been matched since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

McCain — apparently obsessed with those facts — gambled last Wednesday by declaring he had suspended campaigning to bring his considerable bipartisan credentials to bear in congressional negotiations with the Bush administration.

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson sent the enormous bailout package to Congress 11 days ago and said passage was urgent.