Incumbents From Both Parties May Require Their Own Bailouts

The Hill

Aaron Blake

December 16, 2009

A late October poll for Time magazine showed that 55 percent of Americans opposed the bailout, and other polls have shown even more are opposed when the wording of the question is slightly different.

While the issue will be wielded against members of both parties throughout the next 11 months, it could be particularly potent in some race-to-the-right GOP primaries. The Time poll showed 71 percent of Republicans and 64 percent of independents opposed to the bailout.

One GOP pollster said candidates are polling the issue and are deeply concerned.

"It's a killer - particularly in a GOP primary," the pollster said. ...

Former WWE CEO Linda McMahon says a bailout was needed but has run ads critical of the circumstances surrounding it, while former Rep. Rob Simmons (R-Conn.) has tacked 100 percent against the concept of a bailout.

"It was necessary at the time; our economy was going to collapse," McMahon said in a recent interview with The Hill. "I certainly don't think it's been executed the way I understood it would."

Simmons campaign manager Jim Barnett noted that the bill "incited fiscal conservatives across America, and it is the same bailout that Rob Simmons has clearly and unambiguously opposed."

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