Must-reading: McCain's latest attempt at craven vote-grabbing is a supposed $300 billion homeowner bailout package. Kevin Drum discusses it here and here.

It appears to be 1/3 corporate give-away, rewarding all the wrong parties, and the other 2/3 is given to homeowners who got in over their heads.

But what about most of us homeowners who did not get in over our heads and continue to payoff our mortgages? Is it fair to us to see others get bailed out with sweeter terms because they either got bamboozled and yet should've known better, and/or over-extended themselves and should've known better?

Kevin writes:

The only comment I did make in real time about McCain's proposal was an observation that CNN's focus group "against expectations, really didn't like McCain's idea of bailing out homeowners directly." And the reason for that appears to be straightforward: cautious, responsible homeowners who took out cautious, responsible loans and bought cautious, responsible houses, are not necessarily thrilled at the idea of their idiot profligate neighbors getting a federal bailout for the idiot profligate loans they took out on their idiot profligate house/remodel/HELOCs.

It's fitting that McCain likely thought he had a sure-fire winner with this latest gimmick and yet like everything else associated with his campaign, it turns out to be not just a dud but a potential negative. When does he just give up and begin to go through the motions until it's finally over?