A Little Political Jujitsu

The first step in defeating a trap is knowing it's there.
The second step is getting somebody else to fall into it:(emphasis mine)

ABC News' George Stephanopoulos reports: If Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain doesn't vote for the Bush administration's $700 billion economic bailout plan, some Republican and Democratic congressional leaders tell ABC News the plan won't pass.

"If McCain doesn't come out for this, it's over," a Top House Republican tells ABC News.

A Democratic leadership source says that White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten has been told that
Democratic votes will not be there if McCain votes no -- that there is no deal if McCain doesn't go along.

The third step then is to make sure you leave your opponent a way out, and that the exit is right where you want them to go, in this case the Bush-McSame Wall Street Welfare Bill.

Yes, I know. It's a huge game of political chicken with the country at stake here. It's pretty scary stuff, really. But it's precisely because the stakes are so high that the Democrats need to fight back, and this is exactly the way to do it. Take the hideous stuff out of the bailout, force John McSame to vote yes, have Obama say no, and then deal with the problem in January.

Better yet Democrats, forsee the obvious GOP counterattack that John McSame will then try to "heroically block the bailout" by putting such pressure on Bush that the corporate interests pull McSame aside and have a little talk with him. He has to vote yes, then you have him cold.

Nobody in Congress has come out for this bailout as is. Nobody. That's got Wall Street scared, and they are likely to do something stupid like force Bush's hand on this. When that happens, make sure Obama's on the right side of history...and McSame isn't. Make the House and Senate GOP rank and file not only run against Bush, but McSame too, y'dig?

[UPDATE] Scott at LGM isn't impressed with the GOP's The Plan at all.

I agree that as long as the plan that passes is acceptable, the fact that Republicans will run against Dems for passing it isn't a big deal. (Just as they shouldn't even consider Bush's "give me $700 billion to arbitrarily dispense" plan irrespective of the politics.) The additional thing to add is that if the election is focused on the economy McCain is going to get massacred, so if this is the big Republican strategy I'm not exactly cowering in terror.

Point taken. Obama still wins (and wins big) if this becomes an issues election. And right now there's 700 billion plus reasons to believe this is an issues election.