McCain-Palin Campaign Conference Call On Democrats' Failure To Pass The Economic Recovery Bill

"So there was a genuine failure that was facing America and Senator McCain accepted the challenge, suspended his campaign and returned to Washington with the intent of delivering to the American people the relief that they certainly need and in doing so was hoping to build a bipartisan effort to provide that relief." -- Doug Holtz-Eakin, McCain-Palin Senior Policy Adviser

Today, the McCain-Palin campaign held a press conference call with Doug Holtz-Eakin, McCain-Palin senior policy adviser, on the Democrats failure to pass the economic bailout bill:

Doug Holtz Eakin: "Today is obviously a very, very sad day for American families, for businesses, for the everyday life of the economy's ability to function, and a day that we hope to put behind us as quickly as possible. As the Senator said, in the end, it is time for the House and the Senate to regroup, to go forward in a bipartisan fashion, and to find a way to stabilize the financial markets and stop this great rift in the American economy. Before I open it up to questions, I do want to take this opportunity to dial the clock back a little bit and explain exactly what John McCain has done for the past week, and in the process hopefully lay to rest some of the charges that I don't think are exactly merited.

"Beginning a little less than a week ago, John McCain recognized that we had three great problems. Number one, we had an economic problem, a financial market which was both destabilized in and of itself and threatening to get to the point, that sadly we are very close to, where ordinary businesses cannot borrow simply to hold their inventory, to bridge the gap to make their payroll, and indeed the things that are conventional in a large modern economy.

"He also recognized that the solution that was on the table to address this issue was not adequate in its content for the protection of taxpayers, the oversight of the conduct of the stabilization efforts and a variety of other factors, and it did not have votes to pass, and in the end, it did not pass. This failure to have the votes is recognized by the other side as well. Senator Reid called upon Senator McCain to bring Republicans on board and Speaker Pelosi said quite clearly that Democrats in the House were not going to pass without Republicans and Republicans were not in fact engaged in the process in the House. So there was a genuine failure that was facing America and Senator McCain accepted the challenge, suspended his campaign and returned to Washington with the intent of delivering to the American people the relief that they certainly need and in doing so was hoping to build a bipartisan effort to provide that relief.

"He encountered partisanship almost immediately. Senator Reid criticized him, having called upon him to do this. He was criticized for doing it. He went to a White House meeting which was sadly lacking in a spirit of bipartisan problem-solving. Instead, it devolved into figure pointing partisanship. At the meeting, he held his tongue and chose not to engage in that very kind of spirited partisan debate -- instead defending only the House Republicans' right to be involved in this process, and picking up the pieces on Friday morning by visiting with the Senate, visiting with the House, explaining at every step of the way that all parties have a seat at the table and explained to House Republicans as well that they needed to take that seat and provide a negotiator. He engaged in the process and contributed constructively to that and what ensued was exactly that.

"House Republicans took the opportunity to choose Minority Whip Blunt as their negotiator. It appeared over the next several hours on Friday that the process was moving forward. There were reports of staff meetings that were productive and helpful. Senator McCain went to the debate, showed the American people that he was prepared to be the next President, came back to Washington that night, arriving about 4 a.m., and got up the next morning and continued to monitor the process. And at all points in this, I think it is essential to emphasize that he did his job knowing number one that it was important for him to be involved in pushing the process.

"He was never advocating for particular parties. He was not advocating for particular ideas in the bill. He wanted a process where all parties were engaged, all parties were in good faith negotiating that would lead to a kind of legislation that would alleviate this problem. He also made the conscious decision to not attract attention to John McCain knowing that he was the target of partisan attacks, knowing that he would be accused if he did raise his profile of injecting presidential politics into this important process. In response, he's criticized but he did the right thing. John McCain takes criticism knowing that a national need is being addressed, and he continued to both engage with the members who needed to be comforted with the difficult votes, encouraged to understand the issues, checking with the facts on the ground, with Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke, Secretary Paulson, other members of the process.

"Today, that process broke down and it broke down quite frankly with partisan attacks from Speaker Pelosi on the floor in the midst of what should have been the final moment of bipartisanship."

Listen To The Conference Call
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