Blog : Bandage

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10/2/2008 8:23 pm

Bandage

DENVER -- Republican presidential candidate John McCain predicted Thursday that the resurrected financial bailout bill will pass the House on its second try, but said the $700 billion rescue plan is still just a bandage and not a cure.

On the eve of the House's second vote on the financial package, McCain spoke to several hundred women at a town-hall meeting. The night before, the Arizona senator had returned to Washington and voted for the revised bill in the Senate.

"It's like a tourniquet _ it will stop the bleeding, then we have to set about fixing the way we do business in Washington, D.C.," he said.

As President Bush and congressional leaders lobbied hard Thursday for the bill's passage, McCain also made calls to try to win over skeptics, his campaign said.

But he surprised some by not speaking about it on the floor of the Senate as the roll was called Wednesday; just a week earlier he announced he was suspending his campaign to rush to Washington to help negotiate a solution to the crisis.

The economy was a top concern for many in the audience at his town-hall meeting. His questioners, all of them women, asked about affording college, health care, jobs and keeping small businesses afloat.

McCain seized the opportunity to criticize Democrat Barack Obama and his running mate, Joe Biden, seeking to portray them as taxers and spenders whose policies will cause the country to hemorrhage jobs.

"This is about the Obama-Biden team that will kill jobs with higher taxes and the McCain-Palin team that's going to cut the second highest business tax in the world and create more jobs," McCain said.

While campaigning in Michigan earlier Thursday, Obama hammered McCain on the same point, saying he's out of touch and doesn't understand the concerns of struggling Americans. Both candidates focused on jobs ahead of the government's unemployment report due Friday.

"Nine straight months of job loss," Obama said. "Yet, just the other week, John McCain said the fundamentals of the economy are strong. Well, I don't know what yardstick Sen. McCain uses, but where I come from, there's nothing more fundamental than a job."

Despite the focus on mostly economic issues at McCain's town hall meeting, the Republican candidate remarked that the gathering was "one of the more impactful and emotional town hall meetings I've ever had _ maybe it's because it's a women's town hall meeting."

An Associated Press-GfK poll this week found that Obama has a big advantage among female likely voters, who support him 52 percent over McCain's 34 percent.

And in fact it was the women Thursday who were urging McCain to toughen up. One asked when he plans to "take the gloves off" against Obama.

The question drew a standing ovation and raucous cheers from the crowd.

Looking ahead to his next debate with Obama, a town hall-style format, McCain said: "How about Tuesday night?" McCain and Obama are scheduled to meet for the second of three debates on Tuesday night in Nashville, Tenn.