WALLACE: Over the years, John McCain has broken with his party and risked his career on a number of issues -- campaign finance, immigration reform, banning torture.

As a president, can you name a hot-button issue where you would be willing to buck the Democratic Party line and say, "You know what? Republicans have a better idea here?"

OBAMA: Well, I think there are a whole host of areas where Republicans in some cases may have a better idea.

WALLACE: Such as?

OBAMA: Well, on issues of regulation. I think that back in the '60s and '70s a lot of the way we regulated industry was top-down command and control, we're going to tell businesses exactly how to do things.

And you know, I think that the Republican Party and people who thought about the markets came up with the notion that, "You know what? If you simply set some guidelines, some rules and incentives, for businesses -- let them figure out how they're going to, for example, reduce pollution," and a cap and trade system, for example is a smarter way of doing it, controlling pollution, than dictating every single rule that a company has to abide by, which creates a lot of bureaucracy and red tape and oftentimes is less efficient.

And that is the case with Obama. He is moving the Party backward not forward.

It's bad enough that we have Democrats pushing for a Wall Street giveaway who have taken millions upon million of dollars from their corporate Wall Street masters which explains their votes and enthusiasm for such a travesty against taxpayers. But when the Democratic candidate for President is out promoting for the bailout and is a top recipient of Wall Street money then we have crossed the Rubicon.

Opensecrets.org took public information and charted the WS money received by the enablers of the bill starting in 1989 to present. Obama received $27,942,613. More than anyone who is pushing for the bailout. More than people with 4 times his tenure in politics.  And that was I would guess from 1997, not 1089, when he started as a state Senator to present.  So he amassed a record amount in a shorter time frame.

How can that excite any real Democrat little on a Progressive? How can anyone doubt the influence of that money on him? How can anyone think their words could trump the money in influencing him?

Anyone who thinks they can push this guy with words to become a solid Democrat or a progressive and knows his history and his monied connections are only fooling themselves. And if they don't know his history or monied connections then they need to do their homework and start telling people what we are really dealing with.

The next President is going to have a total mess on their hands:
Economy
Iraq
Foreign Policy
Energy
plus little things like the DOJ...

The ultra rich see "giving people low paying jobs, domestic service jobs, jobs without benefits" as "taking care of".  It was always like "taking care of" pets.  Some rich were actually loving about that...some not so much but none able to see the "poor" as their equals who happen to not win the DNA lottery.

FDR was a hero because he was a rich man that understood that creating a middle class, a LARGE middle class was the best way to keep democracy.
I alway loved what Justice Brandeis said:

"We can have a democratic society or we can have great concentrated wealth in the hands of a few. We cannot have both." -Louis Brandeis

I believe we were headed in the right way....wrestling away the wealth from robber barons after WWII but too many "poor people" and immigrants (like my family) were seizing opportunity to educate their children.  I believe that Reagan stopped the process, using deceit and his ability to act to convince people like my father who had loved and admired FDR that he, Reagan, was for everyone.  Reagan tried to undo everything FDR and his neocon worshippers wanted to continue it.  Clinton was able to stopgap the thievery for a short four years until Newt, the most sanctimonious, lying hypocrite, and his cronies made sure Clinton policies were stopped by his smear and dirt campaign.  No, Bill was not innocent in his personal life. Neither was Newt. One was given a pass. The other was trashed to make sure his policies that benefitted the poor and middle class were stopped.

If it were up to me, not only would the work program theory of FDR be the cornerstone of the democratic nominees, the neocon greed machine would be mentioned whenever possible.  People NEED to blame Bush, Reagan and the millionaire pundit class who put these idiots into power and got rich for their work.

Upping the limit nationally would help the banks nationally as people would not be pulling out their cash above the present limits.

I hope and believe he will win this election.  But nothing will get significantly better in the next 4 years.  The problems are so deep that only dramatic solutions will solve them, and that is just not who he is.

There is nno way out of this without creating some relief for institutions.  None.  The sooner people get their heads around that, the better off we'll be.  This isn't, specifically, about fixing the stock market.  It's about fixing the CREDIT markets.  There's been collateral damage to the stock market as a result, but ultimately, this comes down to fixing the engine that makes the motor run.  

I keep waiting to hear feasible solutions.  McCain's certainly isn't, nor, really, is the insurance provision (that's a joke, and I'm in a position to know).  

The questions for the Republicans and Democrats who voted against the bill ought to be, "How many Americans should lose their jobs?  How many small or privately held companies should close?  How soon?  Are you prepared to take responsibility when it happens?"

But when was the last time he actually said he was a Democrat in any of his ads and then talk about Democratic principles?  He works very very hard to avoid using that word as he is campaigning.

Ironically, the Republican right staked out the most left/populist position on the bailout.

McCain instinct was to head for the arena, taking flak as necessary, and try to make a difference.

Obama's instinct was like that of so many House members on both sides -- try to be as uninvolved as possible, and look as good as possible doing it.

(HRC, by contrast, would have suspended and gone to the arena, and would have passed a legislative solution. Can you doubt it?)

And it is the Dems who once did, and now again can, espouse it.

If Obama can make that case, and it is the realistic case, then he will be beyond partisan in a real way.

That's not to assume the the Repub party, as you note, will not brand it "tax and spend" or whatever, since they are totally committed to vicious, divisive partisanship.

But there will be no progress for anyone unless someone stands up for the better angels of our nature without worrying about right-wing branding.

Worrying about what the Repubs will say is accepting their profoundly partisan world as the most powerful factor in our civilization, instead of creating a new intellectual and moral world for the future.

That Clinton can still be a leader, if not the president, as we move on.

However, logic is not his strong suit. Nor is consistency.

So, yes, vetoing a Dem bill is not only possible, but likely. Bush will be Bush.