McCain Enters The "Now What The Hell Am I Going To Do?" Phase Of His Campaign (With Updates)

Let's see -- last week, McCain prematurely declared victory in his debate with Obama, then proceeded to lose said debate. Then, just yesterday, we got this statement from McCain campaign strategist Steve Schmidt on Meet the Press with regard to the bailout bill (via Political Wire):

"What Senator McCain was able to do was to help bring all of the parties to the table, including the House Republicans, whose votes were needed to pass this."

Or not.

The bailout plan has been rejected by the House, and as a result, the Dow fell 778 points, the worst single-day point loss ever.

So let's sum up: Last week, McCain "suspended" his campaign and threatened to blow off the debate in order to return to Washington to straighten out this bailout mess. Even though McCain really didn't suspend his campaign and really didn't blow off the debate and -- let's face it -- really didn't do dick with regard to this bill, he had nonetheless taken credit prematurely for "bring[ing] all of the parties to the table, including the House Republicans, whose votes were needed to pass this."

Now what the hell is McCain going to say given that the bill has failed and less than 33% of House Republicans voted for the measure? Obama had enough sense to stay away from Washington, and only made the trip when his president asked him to (and even then stating that it wasn't a good idea to introduce presidential politics into the bailout debate). Despite Obama's absence from D.C., approximately two-thirds of House Democrats supported this bill, which was originally introduced by the Bush Administration.

How will McCain respond now? Well, I actually heard one of his surrogates on television this morning -- prior to the House vote -- attacking Obama for not returning to D.C. like McCain did, so I guess McCain's only real play at this point is to blame Obama for all of this.

UPDATE: McCain blames Obama for all of this.

UPDATE II: From Steve Benen:

This will probably come across as a little snarky because, well, it is. But I have to ask: isn't it incumbent on John McCain to at least pretend to "suspend" his campaign again?

UPDATE III: Check out this horseshit.