McCain's camp claims the senator is partly responsible for the tentative bailout plan. McCain claims bailout credit

Previewing a McCain campaign message for the days ahead, top strategist Steve Schmidt claimed Sunday that Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) is partly responsible for the tentative agreement on a mortgage bailout that congressional leaders announced shortly after midnight.

Schmidt was appearing on NBC’s “Meet the Press” with David Axelrod, the Obama campaign’s chief strategist, who ridiculed the McCain claim as “a little bit of fiction.”


Obama, asked on CBS’s “Face the Nation” if McCain deserved credit for bringing lawmakers together, replied “No,” according to AP.

McCain himself was modest, saying on ABC’s “This Week” that congressional negotiators deserve “great credit” for the bipartisan deal. “"It wasn’t because of me,” McCain said. “They did it themselves.”

McCain initially took a low-profile role in the bailout debate, saying little at a White House meeting and not even saying which version he favored. His campaign released a list of 17 phone calls he had made on Saturday, from President Bush 11 House members.

Schmidt argued: “Earlier in the week, when Senator McCain came back to Washington, there had been no deal reached. … What Senator McCain was able to do was to help bring all the parties to the table, including the House Republicans.”

Axelrod responded: “When this crisis emerged, Senator McCain's first reaction was to say the economy is fundamentally strong. The next day, he suggested a commission to study this. And by eight days later, he said it was such a crisis that he was going to suspend his campaign. He showed up a day later in Washington.

“It isn't clear what his role was. So it’s a little bit of fiction to now claim credit for it. That's not the important thing, though. The important thing is that the principles that Senator Obama outlined originally are now embraced and taxpayers will be protected.”

Moderator Tom Brokaw billed the 15-minute segment as “Schmidt versus Axelrod,” a first joint appearance.

The appearance was contentious throughout, with the two top strategists occasionally talking over each other.

Axelrod started by tweaking Schmidt about McCain’s threat to skip the debate, saying: “It was a great setting. It was a great debate – glad that it went forward, glad you guys came.”

Schmidt then referred to Obama as “a great talker.”

And Schmidt said Obama had not used the word “victory” in the debate. The Obama campaign is launching an ad on national cable Monday pointing out that McCain had not mentioned “the middle class.” Schmidt said he addressed middle-class concerned but did not use those words.

Obama had suggested in a statement earlier Sunday morning that he is likely to support the latest bailout proposal, although he would review it if he were elected president.

Schmidt also suggested McCain is likely to support the tentative agreement: “He’s happy that there appears to be a framework completed. … Senator McCain looks forward to reading the fine print of this.

But it does appear that great progress has been made overnight.”

On other matters, Axelrod acknowledged Obama may have to rethink his priorities because of money constraints imposed by the financial breakdown.

“Obviously we’re going to have to look at the budget, and Senator Obama said he’s going go through it line by line and he’s going to get rid of things that don’t work,” Axelrod said. “We have, for example, a reading program that was installed by the Bush administration that turned out to be a big boondoggle – it’s not helping any kids learn. We ought to say: That doesn’t work; let’s get rid of it.

“And that’s the approach he’s going to take. If we’re going to do … the things that are going to strengthen the middle class in our economy, we’re going to have to be very flinty-eyed about what we can keep and what we don’t.”