Reminder: we do have a bicameral legislature

It is emerging who politics is playing into the talks on a budget deal. The Senate seems to have reached a deal between Republicans and Democrats on some sort of compromise bill built off of the Paulson plan with modifications. The Democrats in the House, however, insist that the vote in the House should be bipartisan. The House Democrats don't want to be on the hook as being the ones who pushed this through because they realize that the deal is not popular. Nancy Pelosi has said she will not pass the deal unless she gets substantial Republican support. And the House Republicans aren't cooperating. They don't like the plan and have proposed their own plan. The Secretary of the Treasury called Lindsay Graham and begged him to ask John McCain to help out with the recalcitrant House Republicans. As CBS's Bob Schieffer reported,

BOB SCHIEFFER: I am told, Maggie, that the way McCain got involved in this in the first place, the Treasury Secretary was briefing Republicans in the House yesterday, the Republican conference, asked how many were ready to support the bailout plan. Only four of them held up their hands. Paulson then called, according to my sources, Senator Lindsey Graham, who is very close to John McCain, and told him: you've got to get the people in the McCain campaign, you've got to convince John McCain to give these Republicans some political cover. If you don't do that, this whole bailout plan is going to fail. So that's how, McCain, apparently, became involved.

On Wednesday, Harry Reid was saying how much he needed John McCain to support the bill. But then John McCain surprised people by saying that he would come to Washington to help with the negotiations. Immediately, the Democrats switched. They started accusing McCain of injecting presidential politics into delicate negotiations ignoring what they'd been saying the day before.

But that's a hard case for them to make for two reasons. First, Harry Reid. On Wednesday Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid had explicitly called for McCain to use his influence as party leader to bring House Republicans along. "We need, now, the Republicans to start producing some votes for us," Reid said. "We need the Republican nominee for president to let us know where he stands and what we should do." Reid explained that McCain was crucial to any deal because his approval of a deal would give congressional Republicans political cover necessary to sign on to a bipartisan agreement. The second reason: House Republicans were never on board. Earlier this week, they gave Vice President Dick Cheney an earful about their opposition to the deal. Yesterday morning, a group of about 50 conservative House Republicans got together and when one speaker asked for a show of hands from those who support the bailout, less than a handful said they were likely to support it. One staffer for a Republican in House leadership said: "Understand one thing. House Republicans were never on board."

Then to prevent McCain from getting any credit for his return to Washington, Democrats like Barney Frank and Chris Dodd came out Thursday morning saying that a deal had been reached even before McCain's plane touched down in D.C. However, they knew that the House Republicans were still not on board. Perhaps they were hoping that McCain could be blamed for a deal breaking down even though the deal hadn't been completed in the first place and they knew that the House GOP wasn't playing. So Barney Frank and Harry Reid are out there saying that McCain was the one gumming up the works. But, as Mark Ambinder reports, they are mischaracterizing what McCain did in the White House meeting.

Though Sen. Chris Dodd implied that Sen. McCain sandbagged the rest of the negotiators by bringing up alternative proposals, McCain himself did not bring up those proposals, according to four independent sources briefed by four different principals inside the meeting, including two Republicans and two Democrats.

And before we have to listen to lectures from Barney Frank, let's not forget how he was one of the Democrats blocking any reform of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and claiming that there was nothing wrong with our mortgage system. Frank was telling us that they were "fundamentally sound" and should be giving out more of these mortgages to low income families.

"McCain has not attacked the Paulson deal," said a third Republican who was briefed by McCain direclty. "Unlike the [Democrats] in the [White House] meeting, he didn't raise his voice or cause a ruckus. He is urging all sides to come together."

Republicans like John Boehner brought up the concerns of House GOPers and McCain acknowledged hearing about their concerns. And McCain, and staffers, did seek to gauge the level of support of the GOP working group's white paper. The Democrats were left with the impression that McCain endorsed the GOP efforts, but they concede that he did not raise them directly.

The fact is that Boehner doesn't have 100 votes from his conference -- 100 votes that Nancy Pelosi really wants. And that's not McCain's fault.

Notice, by the way, how no one is talking at all about any role that Senator Obama has had at all in this process. Isn't he supposed to be the guy who can bring guys together in negotiations and work out a deal.

So who knows where we are now. Perhaps McCain will be able to bring more of the House Republicans in on the deal. Maybe Pelosi will decide to bring up the bill even though she doesn't have much Republican support. After all, she does have the majority party in the House and she has shown no unwillingness previously to ram through bills without Republican support.

And the line that McCain is injecting presidential politics into this is just malarkey. First, the Democrats and Henry Paulson had asked for his help. And secondly, whoever wins the election in November will be the one who has to administer whatever deal is crafted. He will be the one who will live with the budget implications of spending $700 billion on the bailout plan. He will be the one who will have to be crafting new laws to make sure that this doesn't happen again. It would be irresponsible for the potential presidents to be hands off, particularly when they're both still sitting senators, in the most important financial legislation in generations. It's still not clear where either Obama or McCain stand on the bailout plan. We don't know if McCain is supporting the House plan or not. In the midst of these delicate negotiations, he may be right to play his cards close to his vest. But at some point, both candidates are going to need to make their positions public.

As Roger Simon says, McCain is taking a huge political risk.

Here is the upside in McCain’s gamble: Congress reaches a solution before Friday night, McCain takes credit for jawboning the lawmakers into doing it, and then he flies down to the debate looking like a man of action willing to make bold moves.

Here is the downside: Congress fails to act in time, McCain gets to blame Congress for letting the people down, he misses the debate, and Obama gets to stand on a stage without him.

This morning, it seems as if we're closer to the latter than the former.

If we're truly on the brink of the abyss that Bernanke and Paulson think we are, both parties from both sides of Capitol Hill need to come together. The House GOP have to decide if they're willing to sandbag the entire deal and tank the markets. And Nancy Pelosi has to decide if she is willing to put the bill forward even if she only has marginal Republican support. And the candidates need to let us know where they stand.

But we don't need Congressional Democrats pretending that John McCain is the one blocking a deal. There wasn't a deal before he arrived and there still isn't one. They might pretend that they had a deal before he came to D.C., but that is ignoring the fact that they want the House Republicans to sign on to the deal and don't want to consider any alternative plans.