Bailout a political no-win for Democrats?

I think kos makes a good point here, but he also misses the point as well:

If Democrats want to throw away this election, there’s no better way to do it than to join Bush in his “Chicken Little” act, and raid the treasury to bail out those incompetent and greedy Wall Street assholes…

Unlike Iraq, there’s a real crisis here, that requires real governmental intervention. But like Iraq, waiting a few weeks for a better picture of the crisis to be painted would inject much needed reason into this process. I wouldn’t go so far as to claim that this crisis is good for McCain. But for down-ballot Republicans desperate for a populist issue to grasp, this could be a gift from heaven.

So there’s a political reason to wait five weeks until after the election for a response, which will hopefully be more persuasive to some than the obvious “good policy” reasons.

This line of reasoning makes sense, but it ignores two very important points.

First of all, most economists, even liberal ones, have basically gone out and said that something needs to be done and needs to be done sooner rather than later.  Part of being a politician is sometimes having to do something which is necessary, even if it’s very unpopular.

Second, let’s say Democrats do wait until after the election to deal with this.  Then those same republicans who otherwise would have said that they would have voted against it would then turn around and scream about how the Democrats are playing politics while the economy crumbles in front of them, creating what could be a very effective attack on an issue which is seen as one of the Democrat’s best.

So Democrats are faced with either Republicans leading the wrath of the people that they gave away $700 billion, or they are faced with Republicans leading the wrath of the people over them not doing anything about the economy collapsing.  Neither of those choices are particularly favorable toward democrats.

That’s part of the reason why people like Senator Dodd have been pushing so hard for a compromise plan that will both bailout wallstreet, but do it in a way that isn’t a give away, or at least one which is a mere small fraction of what it was going to be otherwise.  That way Democrats at least hope that they can have their cake and eat it too – insluate themselves against attacks that they’re just giving away money to Wall Street while also doing something.