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The Note: McCain Changes Mortgage Plan

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October 09, 2008 9:22 AM

ABC News' Teddy Davis reports in Thursday's Note:

John McCain was hoping that the mortgage buy-up plan that he offered during Tuesday's debate could help separate him from President Bush while also differentiating himself from Barack Obama. It now appears, however, that he may have given the Obama campaign a new opening.

Politico's Mike Allen reports that, from Tuesday to Wednesday, McCain changed his mortgage buy-up plan, making it "more generous to financial institutions and more costly for taxpayers."

The McCain campaign told reporters in a Tuesday issue paper that lenders "must recognize the loss that they've already suffered."

But when McCain posted the plan to his campaign Web site Wednesday, that sentence was missing.

"It's another example of John McCain's erratic response to the economic crisis," Obama communications directions director Dan Pfeiffer tells ABC News.

Read the rest of The Note -- and get all the latest on the 2008 election, Congress, the White House and the wide world of politics every day -- from Rick Klein by bookmarking this link.

Pfeiffer advises that Obama will respond to McCain's mortgage plan on the campaign trail, and the campaign is launching a new television ad.

"Who wins?" asks the narrator in Obama's new ad.

"The same lenders that caused the crisis in the first place. Putting bad actors ahead of taxpayers? We can't afford more of the same."

Watch it HERE.

A McCain campaign official sought to downplay the change in the Arizona senator's plan.

"That language was mistakenly included in the initial draft and it's been corrected. It doesn't reflect the intentions of the initiative, which necessitated the correction and the removal of the sentence," a McCain official told Politico. "A simple mistake."

Continue reading today's Note by clicking HERE.

ABC News' Hope Ditto contributed to this report.

October 9, 2008 in Biden, Joe, McCain, John, Obama, Barack, Palin, Sarah, Vote 2008: Democrats, Vote 2008: Republicans, Washington | Permalink | User Comments (169)

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erratic?

same team

same tactics
same brains

9th year

throw these bums out!

Posted by: dl | Oct 9, 2008 9:38:19 AM

It's quite a flip-flop to go from "swallowing hard" to vote for the bailout to introducing another bailout plan that would place even more risks squarely on taxpayers. And isn't this "big government spending"?

http://www.political-buzz.com/

Posted by: matt | Oct 9, 2008 9:39:03 AM

Next McCain will be giving away free groceries for a year..anything to win.

Posted by: donna | Oct 9, 2008 9:45:02 AM

I'm so sick and tired of John McCain's SOCIALIST policies!

Posted by: Oh, the irony of it all | Oct 9, 2008 9:45:45 AM

Not bad. These type of big initiative need tweaking and feedback from the parties.

Give as much feedback as possible and work with McCain to pass this proposal

Posted by: Tim | Oct 9, 2008 9:50:42 AM

McCain/Palin's low blow politics is an embarrassment to every democratic world citizen. Mean spirited republicans name calling, is just ugly. They are just not smart enough to articulate a positive message for the country. According to a statistical analysis 2/3's of Obama's ads are positive while McCain's are 100% negative.

Posted by: Perspective | Oct 9, 2008 9:54:58 AM

Better stop reporting on McCain. He has no clue.

It's flip-flopping and zig-zagging and nothing else.

It's sickening.

Posted by: herta | Oct 9, 2008 9:55:43 AM

McCain and his campaign do not think things out. They react like gamblers. In this case the house wins again. This is not what our country needs.

How can he say, I'm going to do a mortgage bailout and a spending freeze in the same debate. It's called pandering.

Posted by: huh? | Oct 9, 2008 9:56:42 AM

When Obama makes a mistake its the end of the world and when McCain does "Oh it was just a mistake" Give me a break!

Posted by: Kathy | Oct 9, 2008 9:56:54 AM

Here we go again...McCain release this at a debate and now goes back on it because it will cost his BIG buddies too much.

Ha...what a fake you are McCain!!!

Posted by: happless | Oct 9, 2008 9:57:18 AM

Yesterday, McCain refered to us a "fellow prisoners." WHile some may say he just made a little mistake, I think it actually tells us more about how he views America than he wants us to know. Under McCain/Palin, it would be an extension of Bush/Cheney whose goal was to make us all walk lockstep with their policies, regardless of how those policies trampled the Constitution. As for McCain's proposal to buy failing mortgages, what about those of us who have kept up our payments? Will he buy our mortgages at their face value and give us better rates? I would hate to do everything right and have someone like McCain cause me to loose everything because I was able to pay my bills, or raise my taxes to unbelieveable levels to pay for this short-sighted politically motivated program.

Posted by: algwriter | Oct 9, 2008 9:58:10 AM

Right on!! I could see that what McSame recommended would be another colossal error because he would be rewarding the same people who are getting off scott-free with the bailout, then buying the same bad mortgages at A HIGH PRICE, RE-SELLING them back at A LOW PRICE, and then again bailing them out with our hard-earned money. Meantime, these same folks would have made a huge profit from selling them high and re-purchasing them back low, then REWARDED AGAIN THROUGH ANOTHER BAILOUT!! Say no to McShame for his shameful actions.

Posted by: Karen | Oct 9, 2008 9:59:12 AM

"A simple mistake"? When you release a plan to save people, to keep them in their homes...you make sure that it free of mistakes!!

I'm tired of being expected to give McCain leeway on stuff like this. "Oh I'm just a regular guy who makes all sorts of mistakes." Well, this one is going to vote for someone who takes time to proof read their plans before going public with them. Yeah...I'll take THAT ONE anyday over McCain.

Posted by: Greg | Oct 9, 2008 9:59:43 AM

Well, well, well, didn't the great communicator Reagan say: "Government is the Problem".

How is this McCain idea going over with all those "conservatives" whose whole life has been based on making government smaller.
It must be that Palinocchio and her pea-brained miscreant followers are so focused on hate and bigotry that they are not paying attention to what their candidate is saying.

It is not government BUT this ADM. and the GOP... THAT IS THE PROBLEM.

INTELLIGENT citizens will never allow four more years of the same ineptitude
and gut-feeling, impulsive style of decision-making that we have seen. Look where that has gotten us...becoming a third-world country.
The bread lines are getting longer, the soup kitchens fuller and Food pantries are running out... and we should want more of the same? God forbid.

Brother, can you spare a dime?

Posted by: maximus | Oct 9, 2008 10:00:01 AM

Well, well, well, didn't the great communicator Reagan say: "Government is the Problem".

How is this McCain idea going over with all those "conservatives" whose whole life has been based on making government smaller.
It must be that Palinocchio and her pea-brained miscreant followers are so focused on hate and bigotry that they are not paying attention to what their candidate is saying.

It is not government BUT this ADM. and the GOP... THAT IS THE PROBLEM.

INTELLIGENT citizens will never allow four more years of the same ineptitude
and gut-feeling, impulsive style of decision-making that we have seen. Look where that has gotten us...becoming a third-world country.
The bread lines are getting longer, the soup kitchens fuller and Food pantries are running out... and we should want more of the same? God forbid.

Brother, can you spare a dime?

Posted by: maximus | Oct 9, 2008 10:00:11 AM

Excuse me BUT is there anything this man has NOT changed his mind (if he has one)on????????

Posted by: NH voter | Oct 9, 2008 10:01:22 AM

This seemed silly the second he said it. You don't mention something like this for the first time at a debate. If he wanted to roll out a plan of this magnitude, then he should have given a speech, which would have lasted longer than a two minute response. He also should have taken questions from the press and provided some documentation of how the plan would work. This was simply intended to steel Obama thunder, unfortunately for McCain, Obama doesn't think the plan is good.

McCain keeps gambling to win. It isn't working.

Also, didn't he say in the same debate he would also freeze spending. DOH!

Posted by: Know When to Fold Em | Oct 9, 2008 10:03:13 AM

Asking people to fill air in tire to save gas(Which I call Obama's Holistic approach to save gas and money) and Obama not being pro-active for giving any economic stimulus plan(last time Hillary did it), I feel McCain plan is better and should be supported.

Posted by: Tim | Oct 9, 2008 10:07:51 AM

Just earlier today abcnews.com gave Obama credit for mortgage-buy-up plan--saying Obama came up with it two weeks ago--but now that McCain is using it, Obama is making arguments against it. Obama is the king of flip-floppers. I'm sure the Obama people have told abcnews to rectify this!

So now, abcnews.com, here, is insinuating that McCain flip-flopped (which isn't actually true if you read the above), to show fairness toward Obama!

Political Radar (whoever you are): Shouldn't you just report the story, and let the readers pass judgment for themselves?

Posted by: tina | Oct 9, 2008 10:08:40 AM

Isn't better to just buy 95% of American's vote by offering them a tax break while increasing taxes on those evil people making over $250,000 per year?

"when the people find that they can vote themselves money that will herald the end of the republic" --Ben Franklin

Posted by: taylor | Oct 9, 2008 10:09:08 AM

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