Below The Beltway

Yesterday, John McCain suggested that the American people would support the bailout plan if it wasn’t called a bailout plan:

“The first thing I would do is say, ‘Let’s not call it a bailout. Let’s call it a rescue,’” McCain told CNN.

Today, it seems like the rest of the political class is picking up on the idea that the American people are stupid enough to be swayed by a single word:

WASHINGTON — When the Bush administration announced its $700 billion plan to shore up the nation’s shaky financial system, Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. called it the Troubled Asset Relief Program. Everyone else called it the bailout. And from that point on, its fate may have been set.

The politics of governance in Washington is as much about marketing as anything else, and from the beginning, the plan often came across as a taxpayer-financed parachute for high-flying Wall Street tycoons. The fact that its most prominent public advocate was Mr. Paulson, a former chairman of Goldman Sachs, probably did not help shake the image.

By the time it was rejected by the House on Monday, those selling the plan — the White House, Congressional leaders and both presidential candidates — had long since lost the perception battle to critics on the Internet and radio and television talk shows. And if there was any broad agreement on Tuesday, a fractious, finger-pointing day in Washington, it was that the plan needed to be rebranded to have any hope of resurrection.

“The hurdle is overcoming the word ‘bailout,’ ” said R. Bruce Josten, executive vice president of the United States Chamber of Commerce. “It has continued to be used by members of Congress. You see it in the press today all over the place. This is not a bailout; this is Treasury buying toxic assets that they will dispose of over a period of time and resell.”

Umm, excuse me, but buying up troubled assets at a price higher than the market is willing to pay for them, is a bailout. Shrouding it in long-winded Ivy League terminology isn’t going to change that simple fact.

The problem isn’t what the political leadership is calling this scheme, it’s the fact that the public just doesn’t believe them:

Freedom Works, an organization affiliated with Dick Armey, a Republican and former House majority leader, created its own Web site, NoWallStreetBailout.com, and collected thousands of electronic petition signatures within hours.

“The biggest problem they had trying to peddle this package is they just didn’t have the credibility,” Mr. Armey said. “They said, ‘The world’s going to fall apart if we don’t get what we want.’ And the voting public and many members said, ‘We’ve heard this before and we’re not going to buy it.’ ”

The idea that marketing this scheme like it was a household appliance, or the latest iPod, would have made things turn out differently demonstrates just how far out of touch these people really are.