Same question - what would the current situation be had President Bush forcefully refused to entertain any such bailout package? Imagine if he had not only refused, but use the bully pulpit to make absolutely clear to the American people that he would not use taxpayer money for this socialist bailout of big money Wall Street firms?
My guess is that had McCain stayed on the sidelines with his mouth shut, refused to sign the the bailout package, while Obama sided with his his cronies, that:
1) The financial markets would have suddenly “found” another path to liquidity, with the President refusing the misuse TAXPAYER money.
2). The underlying manipulation would have had a higher probability of surfacing.
2) The stock market indices would have been no worse than they are today.
3) McCain would have gained much more support from “middle America” for not siding with big banks, Wall Street, and the Democrats (who wrecked Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae) on this bailout package.
4). McCain would be ahead in the polls.
The only downside would be that Obomber would have tried to link McCain as “once again” siding with the President, however, McCain could easily have deflected this by associating Obomber with big money and his Goldman Sachs connection.
At present, McCain has little standing to stick Obomber to Goldman Sachs since the both of them signed off on this thing.
Funny, isn’t it, how we bailed out Wall Street and the market still crashed.