Pelosi won’t jump alone

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is telling Democrats that she will not support President Bush’s $700 billion bailout of the financial sector unless there is significant Republican support for the controversial plan.

The politics of the bailout are tricky and dangerous for both political parties, particularly since it comes weeks before the presidential and congressional elections.

{mosads}As a result, Pelosi (D-Calif.) has effectively sent the message that if she is going to jump off a cliff to rescue Wall Street, she wants House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) and George W. Bush holding her hands when she leaps.

Pelosi made this scenario clear at a lengthy closed-door meeting of House Democrats on Tuesday. Many of those present said they took Pelosi’s message to mean that a “majority of the minority” needs to support the bill before she will bring it to the floor.

To get that kind of support, President Bush needs to go on television to speak directly to the public, and get on the phone to rally his fellow Republicans, said House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.).

“If it’s a crisis,” Clyburn said in a statement, “and we all need to come together, then as leader of this nation, the president needs to take the lead and bring the country together.”

In the Senate, Republicans have also lined up to oppose their president’s bill, which led Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to worry that he may not have enough Republican votes to pass the package.

“We need Republican votes to help us,” he said. “This is a Republican package and we need Republican votes.”

Several GOP senators voiced frustration over the plan during a Banking panel hearing at which Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson urged members of both parties to approve the package quickly.

Sen. Elizabeth Dole (N.C.) echoed other GOP panel members when she said she was “very skeptical of this proposal and extremely frustrated that we find ourselves in this position.”

Reid said that his Democratic colleagues told him that as of Tuesday only one Republican on the Banking Committee could be counted on to vote for the bailout.

As House and Senate members continued to pick at the package even as they fought over who should own it, markets on Wall Street continued to fall amid the uncertainty over when Congress will act and what form the financial bailout package will take. The Dow Jones industrial closed down 161 points on Tuesday after a 372-point drop on Monday.

Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.) said after Tuesday’s Democratic Caucus meeting that it will take 130 to 140 Republican votes to get the bill passed. “They’re going to have to take ownership,” Moran said.

“Ownership” was the word of the day Tuesday, as in, “Who’s going to own this bailout package if it fails?” or if it works and voters remain furious at seeing investment bankers on the public dole.

There’s also the question of who has “ownership” of the faltering economy. And so far, nobody seems to want to own either one.

Democrats say Republicans own the chaos on Wall Street because the GOP spent the last seven years dismantling the regulatory apparatus of the federal government, assuring everyone it would be best for the economy. And now, says Rep. Dennis Cardoza (D-Calif.), “They want total carte blanche.”

So, the thinking goes, Republicans had better take ownership of the bailout package. After Democrats put their priorities in it.

Some Democrats say Bush should not only push for the bailout, he should apologize for gutting the regulation they say could have prevented the crisis.

“The president does owe the nation an explanation and an apology,” said Rep. Carol Shea-Porter (D-N.H.).

Republicans, for their part, say it’s time for Democrats to acknowledge that they run Congress.

{mospagebreak}With that power comes the responsibility for taking ownership of doing what government needs to do, like the bailout package, GOPers say.

“If this melts down and into partisan finger-pointing and nothing happens, it will hit everybody,” said Rep. Zach Wamp (R-Tenn.). “They have the responsibility of governing.”

At the same time, Republicans are demanding that Democrats not load the bill up with a host of their demands.

{mosads}Democrats would seem to hold the stronger political position for avoiding blame. Bush’s unpopular administration is proposing the bailout, and Democrats have ruled the roost in the House and Senate for less than two years.

Still, some Democrats worry that the longer they hold onto the bill and the more they add, the more they are taking ownership themselves.

“I think the more we tinker with and the more we hold onto it, the more we own it,” said a Democratic aide.

Both sides have their eyes on the looming election and are trying to determine which is worse: voting for a $700 billion bailout for the pinstripe set, or taking the blame for the doomsday scenario that Paulson laid out for congressional leaders last week.

The public’s mood is hard to read, which makes the choice tougher. A CNN poll released Monday showed that 62 percent of Americans think the government should step in to help floundering financial institutions, but 65 percent said it would probably treat taxpayers unfairly.

It’s hard to find even one Republican ready to publicly pledge his or her vote. Democratic leaders are speculating that GOP leaders can count on no more than 40 votes. A Republican aide said if Pelosi needs a Republican majority to bring it to the floor, she won’t be bringing it to the floor.

Perhaps sensing the trouble, Vice President Dick Cheney trekked to Capitol Hill to lobby his fellow Republicans for the plan.

But the meeting brought no public converts. Republicans leaving the hour-and-a-half-long meeting said Cheney was told that the plan lacked the details they needed.

Things don’t look much better on the Democratic side, though some members are starting to think about what they might ask for in exchange for the vote. Reid predicted that Democrats will be ready to approve it as long as there is adequate oversight, executive pay limits and accountability.

Alexander Bolton, J. Taylor Rushing and Jackie Kucinich contributed to this article.