Here's a summary of the current siuation on Capitol Hill. I understand why people aren't looking at it this way - folks are so used to the shoe being on the other foot that the real state of affairs isn't immediately apparent. What we have is a kind of political full-nelson.
- If Republicans vote for a bailout, their constituents eat them alive, and Democrats win.
- If they don't vote for a bailout, the economy continues to get worse, they get blamed (because Bush is president and more Democrats voted for the bill than Republicans) and the Democrats win.
- If they wait, the Pelosi can write her own legislation and bring it to the floor, and force the Republicans to vote on that instead. Republicans can't vote for a bill written by Pelosi without pissing off their base, but each time they don't it makes the Democrats look like the only ones who are trying to fix the crisis.
- There are more Democrats than Republicans in congress, so there is inevitably more room for Democrats in "safe" seats to vote for any legislation, especially as it's already a bad year for Republicans. But the Democrats can always stack the deck so an equal number of Republicans as Democrats have to vote for any legislation for it to pass.
- The Democrats can also always outvote the Republicans on legislation that does NOT pass, therefore making it appear that the Republicans are deadlocking the process by failing to provide a fair share of the vote.
- The longer the crisis drags on without any legislation passing, the more the Republicans will be blamed, and the more energy John McCain has to try to spend getting congressional Republicans to vote for legislation they hate. Every time he fails, he looks ineffectual.
- In every-man-for-himself mode as they are, congressional Republicans are hoping that they can ride out the storm without the crisis affecting their constituents until after November 5th, regardless of how badly that screws McCain.
This is the real reason the Republicans are spending all their energy attacking Pelosi as partisan - it's their only argument for continued inaction that stands a chance of working for their base. Obama can keep campaigning because he knows that Democrats have complete control over what legislation passes, and that Bush and McCain will have to accept more than they usually would out of a desire to end the nightmare.