Slate crunches the numbers on where the vote went wrong
Republican and Democratic leaders failed to get the bail-out bill through the House of Representatives by 23 votes. Where did they lose out?
Slate has taken a close look at how American lawmakers voted and what they found is fascinating.
Of the eight politicians in the tightest re-election races, five voted against the bill and three in favour. So despite polls showing Americans against the bill, it wasn't a simple matter of voting nay to get re-elected.
Whilst it's hardly surprising, but it is interesting that those pushing the bill completely failed to win over those at the edges. All 10 of the most conservative Congress members and eight of the 10 most liberal all voted against.
I'm interested that speaker Nancy Pelosi failed to get 15 Democrats from her own state of California in line. It's her job to do better than that. While it was the right-wing of the Republican party that fought hardest against the bill, it makes you wonder whether the Democrats were happy for the chaos to continue a little longer. If anything you'd expect the revised bill to have tougher regulation and remember, this crisis is all happening on the Republicans' watch. With Barack Obama's strategy being to tie Bush and McCain together, Obama seems to get a boost in the polls whenever the economy is the main news story.