Lehrer News Hour: Rescue Bill Failure Shocks Wall Street

MARGARET WARNER: And, Jeanne, in fact, we only had 60 percent of the Democrats vote for it, 40 percent against, and only a third of the Republicans. That’s a pretty wide repudiation. What do you think happened? What was behind this?

JEANNE CUMMINGS, Politico.com: Well, I think we had a combination of things going on. We had — ideology was a problem. This was totally against where some of the free-market Republicans would ever want to be.

We had politics at play here. Many of these no votes came from members who are in tight races. And they are really going to need the base to come out.

And I was hearing that their calls were like 99 percent to 1, you know. It was the local community bankers who were saying, “Please do this, because we’re next.” But otherwise it was very negative public response to this.

And then, of course, we had some partisan petulance. I mean, it was sort of Washington at its worst. It was a really toxic mix.

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Posted in * Economics, Politics, Economy, Politics in General, The September 2008 Proposed Henry Paulson 700 Billion Bailout Package