WSJ: The Financial Crisis Is McCain's Katrina

[babylonsister]

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/10/the_financial_crisis_is_mccain.html

The Financial Crisis Is McCain's Katrina
By Daniel Henninger


If John McCain fails in the next 19 days to catch Barack Obama, his slow response to the financial hurricane of 2008 will be Exhibit A.

The betting here is that when the McCain campaign's black box is recovered it will show he lost altitude during the six days from Sept. 24, when Sen. McCain suspended his campaign, to Sept. 29, when the House GOP defeated the first Paulson Plan to rescue the American financial system. Neither Mr. McCain nor the GOP is likely to recover before Nov. 4 from those six dramatic days, when they did little to deal with Hurricane Fannie's Category 50 financial crisis.

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Conventional wisdom holds that John McCain damaged himself by arriving in Washington without anything to contribute. True. It is also true, however, that the dug-in GOP opposition froze McCain between the party's divided factions and their followers. Obama could simply watch; all eyes were on his opponent.

Over that span, the terrified stock market cratered, wiping out individual voter wealth. Four very long days elapsed before Congress approved the plan, but as with Katrina, voters will only remember the days when the GOP didn't act.

The last thing the McCain campaign needed (or Republicans in close races, such as Sen. Elizabeth Dole in North Carolina) was to be seen by the American people heading for the locker room at crunch time with disaffected House Members. The Real Clear Politics national poll average in the Sept. 22-24 period had McCain a mere three points behind Obama, who was at 48% -- a statistical dead heat. In the week since the congressional in-fighting, Sen. Obama's numbers have drifted above 50% for the first time, and Sen. McCain's have drifted downward.

In politics, the Katrina catastrophe principle -- do something! -- trumps everything. Republicans occupying or vying for the presidency have now violated it twice. Live and learn.