George W. Bush In Support of bailout plan

In the weeks before Monday's vote on the bailout plan President George W. Bush pleaded for bipartisan support. While Democrats backed the President in the vote on Monday, the bill was unable to pass as only 65 of 198 house Republicans voted to pass the bill, with the final margin being 228-205.

A color coded map on where the votes were distributed in reference to party and location can be seen here

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/09/29/business/20080929-CONGRESS-VOTE-GRAPHIC.html

The map and the outcome of the vote provide a few clues into the current state of the Republican party. For one, less than a third of Republicans voted for the bill. This is after it was supported by both President George W. Bush and the John "The maverick" McCain. McCain was supposed to be the knight in shining armour that rode into Washington to save the day. Videos were shown of McCain working the phones and he went as motioning to suspend his campaign to "save the day". His campaign as of today is now down by 7 points across the nation after this failure. This vote however does not show that John McCain completely failed, but rather that the house has completely lost support for its President. With the Republican party split, as it appears to be, winning a Presidential elections in the coming weeks appears that it may be more of a struggle than the party previously believed.

It appears that the President can do little but try to distance himself from the campaign as it continues. Bush appeared to be powerless at the RNC, talking off a mega prompter and showing little emotion while joking, "John McCain will tell you when he thinks your wrong, trust me I know". However, for the Republicans to win the campaign Bush will need to step up and rise to the challenge of leading his party and the country to a solution in this economic crisis. Through doing this, not on the campaign trail, Bush can elevate the McCain campaign and provide "the maverick" with a needed victory that may not only bring him back into competition, but win him the presidency.


Source: pinkdome.com