A late-night emergency session of the committee trying to negotiate a solution to the liquidity problem plaguing the economy came to a crashing halt tonight. With John McCain back in DC, the House Republican caucus has rebeled against the President and McCain. At this meeting tonight, the House Republicans sent a representative unauthorized to negotiate to the meeting (Spencer Bacchus) with a one-sheet whitepaper of “principles and general ideals” that included a Capital Gains tax-cut, increased banking deregulations and mortgage insurance that Henry Paulson has already stated to be a non-starter.
The meeting has fallen completely apart, there is another tomorrow at 11:30am ET which will not include House Republicans, and will therefore have no impact whatsoever.
CNN and MSNBC provided breaking coverage of the detonation of the talks, FOX is rerunning footage of McCain and Bill Clinton together at the Clinton Foundation.
“What an insane day it’s been” Mike Viqueira, veteran NBC House reporter, “we are not any closer (to a deal), in fact we may be farther from it”.
McCain’s visit politicized what was already a complex situation, according to Republican commentators on CNN. According to one of the members of the meetings: “(McCain) was the last person to speak, spoke for a couple of minutes, and didn’t say anything substantive.”
Tom Costello – NBC correspondent – “There has been very little direction from McCain today”. A He and several commentators explained that a group of very 110-115 conservative Republicans have effectively taken control of Repubican House caucus. On CNN, republican Strategist Ed Rollins’ explanation of what these House Republicans are thinking was: “How do we rebuild this party?” They see a need to break with Bush, and “They don’t have much use for John McCain”. Senator John Greg was said to be taking over negotiations for House Republicans – who, again, won’t be at tomorrow’s meeting, anyway.
So, what does all this mean?
o McCain went to Washington, said very little, created divisions among his own party, and perhaps precipitated the collapse of negotiations to address the liquidity in the collapsing banking system.
o House Republicans have seen the end of the Bush/McCain reign and are looking forward to a GOP that is built from scratch.
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