McCain's Bailout Confusion

Courtesy of Politico's Ben Smith, we learn that on a conference call about ACORN earlier today, McCain campaign topper Rick Davis gave McCain credit (blame?) for blowing up the first bailout vote in the House.

Davis expressed outrage that, "in the middle of the greatest disaster in our financial system that we’d had in our lifetime, that the Democrats in the United States Senate would actually link payments to ACORN in the bailout package that they promoted -- prior to Sen. McCain coming to town and actually blowing that package up. So we can actually say that in addition to saving taxpayers millions of dollars, and we’re very happy that no more taxpayer dollars were added to the pile of money going to ACORN."

As Smith goes on to point out, it was the McCain campaign that first blamed Obama for the failure of that first vote in the House - despite the fact that McCain suspended his campaign and threatened not to debate if the bailout package wasn't passed with all haste.

So why is Rick Davis trying to reinvent the past? 

As was discussed on MSNBC's Morning Joe today, the only way McCain could have used the financial crisis to his political benefit was to oppose the bailout. McCain's camp has no doubt realized that and probably wants a re-do. (During which they would have likely ditched that gimmicky "suspension.") In the coming days, watch for Davis and Co try to recreate McCain's actions on the bailout in a manner that is more to their liking. If they don't, well...