Jonathan Martin’s misinformed
September 30th, 2008From his post tonight at The Politico:
While President Bush and Sen. McCain — not to mention House leaders — couldn’t reel in the House Republicans needed to pass the bailout, a key constituency over which Barack Obama has considerable sway also opposed the bill.
More members of the Congressional Black Caucus, whose heavily black districts include many of Obama’s most ardent supporters, opposed the bill than supported it.
Few of these members are in, or will ever have, tough re-elections.
Obama, it seems, could have helped deliver some of these votes if he had been more invested in the bill.
The insinuation that Obama somehow holds more sway over the CBC than he does over nay-voters like, say, the Hispanic Caucus, the Blue Dog Democrats, or generally far-left Dems such as Kucinich is the obvious problem here. Why does Martin think Obama should hold more influence over his old-time enemy Bobby Rush than he has Nancy Boyda or Dennis Kucinich or Linda Sanchez?
Coming on top of attempts to frame the credit crisis as a result of forcing dangerous loans to unreliable Blacks and Hispanics, this is really beyond the pale.
Here’s the votes by the CBC members (quick tally; might’ve made a mistake):
Ayes (17): Bishop, Brown, Clarke, Clyburn, Arthur Davis, Danny Davis, Ellison, Hastings, EB Johnson, Meek, Meeks, Moore, Rangel, Richardson, Towns, Waters, Watt
Nays (22): Butterfield, Carson, Clay, Cleaver, Conyers, Cummings, Edwards, Fattah, Green, Jackson, Jackson-Lee, Jefferson, Hank Johnson, Kilpatrick, Lee, Lewis, Payne, Rush, David Scott, Robert Scott, Thompson, Watson
Martin’s right that most of the CBC opposed the bill (as one would expect when their proposals are dropped in negotiations to gain GOP support), but a group so akin to Obama that he’d be able to sway them specifically on the basis of shared skin tone should vote en bloc, no?
Furthermore, anyone following the bailout negotiations as closely as Martin has to recognize that provisions that were dropped in the negotiations regarding equity in bailed out firms, stricter restrictions on executive compensation, and especially funding programs to prevent foreclosure were disproportionately advocated for by CBC and CHC members. One of the tricky parts of crafting a compromise between so many parties with the frequency that occurs in Congress is that you have to learn to follow through when you say, “my vote is contingent on this being in the bill.” These votes were knowingly given up by the Dem caucus in crafting the compromise, and by all reports the Dems delivered as many or more votes than were expected by the leadership of both parties.
Frankly, Obama probably could’ve made the number of calls required to get Dem voters off the fence on from the left and the right, but it’s ridiculous to pin the blame on him and allow GOP negotiators to get what they asked for into the bill (or out of in the case of foreclosure prevention) without having to put their reputations on the line as well.