Posted by
Always To The Right on Monday, October 06, 2008 9:50:46 AM
A new group opposed to the bailout has released an ad discussing the
origins of the financial crisis, and hailing John McCain as one of the
few who sounded the alarm. “Fighting” hits Democrats hard, in a manner
that many Republicans want to see Team McCain adopt:
How effective will this be? It depends on the resources Right Change
has. This kind of message needs constant repeating to counteract the
notion that “deregulation” caused this crisis. Deregulation didn’t
create this crisis, but to the extent that regulators didn’t stop it
from snowballing, it was Democrats who blocked them from doing their
job, and Republicans who wanted stricter controls on Fannie Mae and
Freddie Mac.
John McCain has been very quiet about this, preferring to talk about
greed on Wall Street as a cause. However, having watched Nancy Pelosi
destroy a carefully-constructed alliance with a partisan attack just
before the first House vote, McCain probably wanted to avoid throwing
blame while negotiating a second package. Now that the bill has passed
Congress, McCain can start telling the real story of the collapse — how
he and a few other Republicans called for stricter controls on Fannie
and Freddie, only to be blocked by Democrats using government to
distort the lending markets while they called OFHEO regulators racist
for blowing the whistle.
McCain needs to help himself on this issue. Barack Obama took more
money from Fannie and Freddie sources over the last four years than any
other member of Congress, then stood silent while they defrauded
investors. McCain has to start making that case today, and every day
for the next four weeks. Even outside of the election, the American
people need to know what really happened — so that we don’t do it again.