First we have Nancy Pelosi giving a highly partisan pre-vote speech to enrage the GOP and try and get them to move to the exits – which, actually they didn’t, their numbers did not move that much at all. It was either the dumbest move on the planet to obtain bipartisan support – or a crafty bit of theatre to cover up a dark sinister secret. 

Then, according to analysis done by Karl Rove, you have 5 Democrat Committee Chairs in VERY safe districts vote against the bailout??? Wait a minute – what was this all about? Why would these folks vote against the bill? Then there were numerous hyper liberal partisans like Barbara Lee, the Sanchez sisters numerous sub-committee chairs, and others – also in safe districts and who are natural allies of Obama and Pelosi – who voted “Nay”. What is going on here?

I have Karl’s analysis below (H/T Johny Dollar’s Place) but one thing strikes me strange here. With only 12 votes needed to move this over the top, why was the vote held open so long and what where the Dems waiting for? Could it be they had to call in some favors from these liberal leaders to keep the bill from succeeding? All evidence points to an effort by the Dems to tank the bailout – and the current mess is clearly helping Obama.

Is someone going to tell me these stalwart liberals would not put their candidate before the nation’s needs? Check out this comment from a democrat about the $1.1 trillion dollar loss this nation took yesterday:

Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Ga., told me yesterday that he felt no pressure at all to vote for the bill.

…

What about the Dow going down 778 points?

“The stock market goes up, the stock market goes down, that’s not something that I am particularly concerned with,” he said.

The Dems could care less how this hit Wall Street or Main Street. I find it implausible that Pelosi and Co. couldn’t dig up 12 measely votes. What I do find plausible and possible is that they kept moving Dems into the “Nay” column as more and more GOP members supported the bill (65 ended up doing so). That required 5 committee chairs to jump ship to save the plan – to tank the bill!

That is the only explanation I can see for this voting pattern. There was no ‘whip’ for the vote, but there could easily have been a plan to pad the opposition to make sure it went down in flames and helped their presidential candidate! Think about this as you listen to Rove’s observations on who exactly voted in the opposition after Pelosi tried to stoke a GOP uprising.

The key here is a Dem leader on the floor BEFORE the vote saying this issue would be used against the GOP in the elections. Anyone not connecting the dots is in denial and in the tank for those who might have destroyed the economy for some votes. I would like each of those named by Rove to explain their vote to see if their ‘rationale’ even passes the laugh test.

Tags: 2008 Election, Chairman, Congressional Vote, Democrat, Financial Crisis, Pelosi