McCain comes out against TARP in 2008

Inspired by the other recent TARP thread, I often seriously wonder what would have happened if McCain had come out visibly and publicly against the bailouts. Could he have stopped TARP and/ or won the election?
 
He couldn't have stopped it. But opposing it would have narrowed Obama's margin of victory. Conservative voters who were skeptical of McCain would have been more motivated and future Occupy types on the D side might have stayed home or flipped (seeing O as a sellout and Palin as a consolation prize in terms of making history).
 
No, he couldn't have stopped it, and if he somehow could, the economy would collapse even faster, making his election even more unlikely. As I once posted here:

***

Remember that at first the House rejected the bailout bill--*then the Dow lost 777 points in one day.* http://www.cnbc.com/id/26945972 After that, there was no doubt it would pass. If they rejected it a second time the market would go down still further until the bill did pass.

I once compared the situation with Trotsky's justification for initially opposing Brest-Litovsk. True, he said, doing so led to Germany driving deeper into Russia and making the terms of peace even harsher. But it was necessary to reject it at first just to show the Russian people how disastrous rejection would be and how helpless Russia would be if it stayed in the war; without this demonstration the Bolsheviks would have been denounced as German agents. (Actually, Lenin and his party *had* gotten money from the Germans, but that's another story.) In September 2008, tanking stocks had the same effect German tanks had in 1918: they showed that resistance was futile.

One reason the bailout was inevitable is that hatred of banks and Wall Street and bailouts was *not* the predominant popular emotion in September 2008. That mostly came later, after the situation had stabilized somewhat. In September 2008 the predominant public emotion was simply *fear.* https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...kruptcy-causes-collapse.351494/#post-10641388
 
No, he couldn't have stopped it, and if he somehow could, the economy would collapse even faster, making his election even more unlikely. As I once posted here:

***

Remember that at first the House rejected the bailout bill--*then the Dow lost 777 points in one day.* http://www.cnbc.com/id/26945972 After that, there was no doubt it would pass. If they rejected it a second time the market would go down still further until the bill did pass.

I once compared the situation with Trotsky's justification for initially opposing Brest-Litovsk. True, he said, doing so led to Germany driving deeper into Russia and making the terms of peace even harsher. But it was necessary to reject it at first just to show the Russian people how disastrous rejection would be and how helpless Russia would be if it stayed in the war; without this demonstration the Bolsheviks would have been denounced as German agents. (Actually, Lenin and his party *had* gotten money from the Germans, but that's another story.) In September 2008, tanking stocks had the same effect German tanks had in 1918: they showed that resistance was futile.

One reason the bailout was inevitable is that hatred of banks and Wall Street and bailouts was *not* the predominant popular emotion in September 2008. That mostly came later, after the situation had stabilized somewhat. In September 2008 the predominant public emotion was simply *fear.* https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...kruptcy-causes-collapse.351494/#post-10641388

Pretty much. The only other solution would be to basically start arresting alot of people for doing stuff they weren't supposed to and that wouldn't have helped.
 
Pretty much. The only other solution would be to basically start arresting alot of people for doing stuff they weren't supposed to and that wouldn't have helped.

Which is not a easy solution. Bernie Maidoff notwithstanding its proved expensive and time consuming for the Justice Dept to prosecute financial regulation violations. A lot more bankers could have gone to jail had the Justice Dept a few hundred million extra and a largish army of lawyers & forensic accountants to carry through.
 
Which is not a easy solution. Bernie Maidoff notwithstanding its proved expensive and time consuming for the Justice Dept to prosecute financial regulation violations. A lot more bankers could have gone to jail had the Justice Dept a few hundred million extra and a largish army of lawyers & forensic accountants to carry through.

Well, there are rules and regulations for what to do in these sort of scenarios. There was a quote somewhere that spoke on what we should have done in regards to all of this, though I cannot seem to find it.
 
I think that McCain would have come across as a desperate opportunist if he first opposed TARP then after the first rejection when the Dow fell 777 points he then supports it.
If he continues to oppose TARP and does not put out his own viable plan, he looks like a dangerous fool and Obama becomes the safe choice
At the White House meeting with Republican and Democratic leaders it was Obama who did the speaking for the Democrats and there was reports that to many of the attendees that it seemed that it was Obama was the President at the meeting by the way he took control of it.
 
Top