In short, the only Republican senators who voted "No" on this bailout bill are those whose seats are safe.
Right now, 5 Republican senators are almost tied with their Democratic challengers in their 2008 Senate races: Chambliss/GA, Coleman/MN, McConnell/KY and Wicker/MS (MS is an open seat). Each of them voted "Yea" on the bailout bill.
Of the 3 more Republicans actually losing to their Democratic challengers right now, Smith/OR and Sununu/NH also voted "Yea". Only Dole/NC is contrary to the pattern: she voted "No", though she's losing to her Democratic challenger - but Dole has been demonstrated incompetent to run any Senate campaign, whether hers or her entire party's, since at latest 2006, when she lost every defense and didn't win one challenge. Even in single-digit Republican Texas, which is "close" only relative to the 20-30 points in the other 9 Republican defenses, Cornyn voted "Yea".
But why does it break down along those lines? Here's some possibilities...
That pattern is interesting, but it doesn't prove much. Are the safe senators voting "No" because
1. They can afford to look "obstructionist"?
2. They don't want to actually bail out the rich?
3. They want to save the money to spend on other handouts in coming congresses?
4. They really believe this is a bad bill, and aren't subject to pressure on their campaigns from the Republican Party which is screaming "doomsday" to get this bill passed?
I don't believe in #2: these particular Republicans always bail out the rich, especially when they're not accountable in an election soon. Likewise #3 looks wrong: they could get their handouts now, safely, with Bush ensuring it, rather than chance it later under Obama and a bigger Democratic majority.
#1 and #4 are kinda the same reason: they can afford to look obstructionist, even with their Party breathing down their necks.
An interesting contrast to the House, where the most endangered Republicans all voted "Nay", the opposite of that pattern in the Senate.
But what I wonder is whether Democrats have really pulled a "rope-a-dope" here. Pelosi seems to have done so in the House, since the net result of the bill there was simply to send something to the Senate that failed in the House, guaranteed to return with only pork stapled to it - raising its cost - as ensured by Harry Reid. But the net result of the House action in the campaigns was that though Americans are about evenly split (so far) on that bill's need to pass, the entire circus set Americans blaming Republicans for it over 2:1, (44:21%) with only a few (17%) even saying "both parties are to blame". And the week following WcCain trying to appear like he's the president tying all this together found him impotent with a failed bill after a "done deal", his own ratings dropping steadily a point a day with no end in sight.
And with endangered Senate Republicans sticking to the opposite strategy as endangered House Republicans, while WcCain seems stuck with both, and pushed largely into spotlighted irrelevancy. Quite the effective division of a leaderless Party down in the polls and in the fundraising.
I usually don't hope for Pelosi and Reid to pull off such a punk on Republicans, even on something small, since it's usually way out of their league (or interest?). So it's probably accidental (result of greater macro forces than their "leadership"). And this time we have to remember that their FISA blocks through the primaries looked like the same exact playbook, and then they passed the amnesty FISA once the primaries "accountability moment" was passed. So while I hope this bill fails, and I'd like to hope that Democrats are pwning Republicans with strategy, all that seems clear is that Democrats will campaign cheaper and easier having pushed Republican buttons, but America will still get stuck with the big bill, as surely as if Republicans had gotten their way anyway.
Just like how we've still got that Iraq War, the torture, the wiretapping, the economic collapse, "despite" 2 solid years of Democratic majority. While Democrats have an election so cheap and easy because Republicans got the blame that Democrats might finally win one.
So that's why I feel like a punching bag.