McCain Pool Report

Doug Holtz-Eakin came to talk to the pool about an hour ago.

Your pool agrees that this is the best of what he said:

All of the text below is on the record…

Provisions that House Republicans have added and what they do: “What the House Republicans wanted to do was to get a fair hearing for in particular, alternative ways to get the taxpayers' money utilized, the insurance program being the most notable, I think. It's in the final version. They feel this gives the taxpayer better protection because it involves getting assistance in return for a premium. That was one of their fundamental objectives.'

Holtz-Eakin said McCain has talked to Paulson twice a day in the last couple days and to Bernanke basically daily.

More on the tick tock of events and how McCain decided to suspend campaign and got to DC:

At Hilton Wednesday morning meeting in NY, economic advisers ``sent to him in very clear terms a message that said this economy is facing a great problem. The Pearl Harbor of the financial system is not an exaggeration. This is something that needs to get fixed. It needs to get fixed right.''

One guy told McCain: ``You're running for the president of the United States. Can't you do something? That was an important meeting.''

``That impressed upon him, even more'' the need to act.
``He left that meeting, obviously, with a heightened sense of concern over the economy. And every time you see the economy in need of assistance and leadership, quite frankly, and the failure continuing, he recognizes that.''

“There is a point sometimes when a process is broken that presence matters, and McCain brought presence to this that was important. And you literally cannot phone that in, and he didn't.”

“He felt this needed to be done. It was broken. He said, ‘we're going to go try to do what we can to get a process that works.' And he is very good at this.”

Amie Parnes

Staff Writer

POLITICO