It really wasn't a surprise when Wall Street didn't have a big rally after the Paulson plan passed the House earlier today.  Wall Street had moved on to the next trading opportunity.

In one of the best-ever Washington-related examples of the common Wall Street saying of "Buy on the rumor, sell on the fact," by the time the legislation was passed, traders had pretty much assumed that it would be approved and were focussing on other issues.  Many of the people who had been the bill's most ardent supporters the past two weeks started to talk about what else would be needed, how this bill only dealt with part of the problem, other economic issues. 

Traders had traded early in the day on the possibility that the bill would be adopted.  When the possibility was high earlier in the day, the Dow was up.  Once the possibility was over, that is, when the bill actually was adopted, the Dow moved down and closed lower. 

If it wasnt already, the 159,000 drop in jobs reported this morning should put the Paulson plan over the top in the House of Representatives later today.  This is the apparent direct connection to main street that's been missing so far.  Today's report provides the political cover any Republican or Democrat needs to vote for this bill.

(Question: Does anyone doubt that the vote was intentionally scheduled to occur after the jobs report?)

So what will happen next?

1.  The Paulson plan will not end the economic woes of the past few weeks. Anyone who thinks the situation will immediately turn around when the bill passes is going to be suprised and disappointed.  I suspect that markets have already assumed it will be enacted and have moved on.  Yesteday's 349 point drop in the Dow may have been a case of this version of "buy on the rumor; sell on the fact."

We all know that, with less than 4 months to go, George Bush is a lame duck president.

But the magnitude of his being a lame duck (lame duckness?) became even more obvious this past week when the country didn't seem to listen to him as he made several pleas for the Paulson-Frank-Dodd plan, his cabinet was either missing in action or ineffective as public spokespeople, and House members from his own political party had no problem ignoring him.

Then CBS released a poll yesterday showing in numerical terms how much of lame duck Bush has become. The president's job approval rating has fallen to 22 percent, a 5 point drop from the previous week and his lowest ever.  Almost eactly 7 years ago, it was 90 percent.

Here's the money quote:

A quick update from my post from earlier this week about the Bush administration's absolutely terrible communications efforts on Paulson-Frank-Dodd: It looks like they finally started to get it.

Bloomberg reported yesterday that the business groups that had been largely silent finally got involved this week.  And the administration finally realized that it getting out in front not only was not helping, but it may have actually be hurting, so it changed tactics and stayed below the radar screen.

Approval ratings for Congress have been falling the past week, presumably because those who were sampled were not happy about the House's failure earlier this week to pass the Paulson-Frank-Dodd plan.

But I thought the majority didn't want the plan.  If that's really the case, shouldn't Congress' approval ratings be rising?

Today is the first day of fiscal 2009.

What were you doing at midnight last night?

Several of the readers who commented on Andrew's post from yesterday said that the House didn't pass the Paulson-Frank because supporters had failed, miserably, to communicate the need for the plan to those who needed to be convinced.

I'm a managing director at a public relations firm and a former national director of public affairs at one of the largest global PR agencies, so please believe me when I say that it's hard, or actually impossible, to argue with this.

From a communications perspective, this has been done about as wrong as is possible.  There have been no credible spokespeople, the messages about the plan have been wrong or incomplete, the plan's supporters failed to understand the different audiences that had to be reached, and few people validated the claim that the plan was needed.

First, nice work Pete.  CG&G readers haven't seen everything Pete's done this week and weekend to stay up-to-date on what's been happening on Paulson-Frank-Dodd (Or is it Paulson-Dodd-Frank?), but I doubt that many other people outside those in the room knew as much as soon as Pete did.

Now, about the plan...

One of the things I've learned over the years is that, while there's nothing wrong with having an opinion about something, there are times that you have to allow those who know, or should know, more than you to make the decision.  That's what we call leadership.  Even in the blogosphere world of alpha males and females, where everyone purports to be an expert on everything, there are times that you need to let others take the lead.

For me, this is one of those cases.  I am willing to bow to Paulson, Dodd, Frank, and Bernanke, etc. because I am assume they know a great deal more than me on this situation.  It's not weak to admit that; it's called delegation.

For about an hour tonight, much of the country stopped talking about the economy and Paulson plan and focused on foreign policy.  That has to be good for McCain, who has taken it on the chin this past week in the polls because of Paulson, Washington Mutual, the Dow, credit markets, etc.

But I doubt this change will last much past tomorrow morning.  With Congress meeting over the weekend on Paulson 2.0 and some senior members of Congress talking about a deal by the end of this weekend, this may be the last time in this campaign that foreign policy is discussed again.

Let me start by answering some of my own questions from earlier this evening:

Obama looked just as presidential as McCain.  McCain did say repeatedly that Obama did not have the experience and judgment to be president, but my guess is that more people were watching than listening.

I didn't detect any major gaffes and there were no memorable one-liners from either candidate.

McCain definitely did not deliver a knockout blow on foreign policy.  Obama didn't win on this issue but he definitely didn't lose.  That's all he had to do.

And now for a few new thoughts:

1.  Neither candidate made much of an impression on the economic questions.

2.  I was surprised that Obama did not ask McCain which specific programs he would cut as president.

3.  Obama was clearly well prepared on the foreign policy answers.  His responses were strong and informed.

4.  Maybe it was my imagination, but McCain seemed to have a certain amount of distain for Obama.

5.  My least substantive comment: McCain's tie was awful.