Majority of the Minority Needed

Along the lines of Number Three's Gaming Theory below, Pelosi is clearly cognizant of the political peril involved in the Wall Street bailout. She intends to have bipartisan cover if the Congress is to take action that is going to be progressively more unpopular as it becomes more widely understood.

As a new twist on the old Hastert "majority of the majority must support" dictum, Pelosi is demanding that a majority of the minority party support the Wall Street bailout package.

To compound the political difficulties, it looks like an almost sure-fire losing scenario for the country's leadership. Here are the possibilities:
1. If Congress passes the bill, and it helps avoid a meltdown, Congress won't get credit for it because nobody will know whether the meltdown would have happened absent congressional action. The public will still be angry about the price tag.
2. If Congress fails to pass a bill, and a financial meltdown occurs, their lack of action will be blamed.
3. If Congress passes a bill, saddles the taxpayers with these huge obligations, and a recession happens anyway, they will be public enemy number one.
4. Congress fails to pass a bill and things do not go dramatically south in short order.
Number four is the only winning scenario here, politically speaking.

Despite the general consensus that Congress is going to deliver something, I'm beginning to wonder whether the rank and file are going to let their leaders deliver on the promises made in negotiating with Treasury over the weekend.

Voters aren't ever going to be able to understand the economic justifications involved. They are just going to see taxpayer money being handed to Wall Street tycoons. I don't know how you sell this to voters, especially in an election season and in an environment where there are defectors and competing elite arguments. Given the public mood right now and the level of trust enjoyed by our political institutions, it looks like the political equivalent of waving a red flag in front of a charging bull.

There was some potent rhetoric being thrown around in Congress yesterday. We'll see what happens with the House Financial Services Cmte hearing today . . .