The geography of the House bailout vote

How did political imperatives swing yesterday's fateful vote? The vast majority of "vulnerable" congressmen - representatives occupying seats truly up for grabs in forthcoming elections - voted against the bailout package. According to the political statistics blog fivethirtyeight.com, 85 percent of vulnerable House Republicans voted for the bailout (only 65 percent of "non-vulnerable" Republicans voted against it). Notably, 72 percent of vulnerable Democrats also voted against the deal (only 38 percent of "non-vulnerable" Dems did the same). It's obvious that the deal's unpopularity weighed heavily for those representatives up against the wall in November. 

But "vulnerable" reps - all 38 of them - don't really deserve the disproportionate attention that fivethirtyeight.com affords them. It was more than delicate political calculus that tipped the scales against the bailout. The fury provoked by Paulson's package scorched many representatives, their offices flooded with phone calls and letters from their irate constituents.

As this illuminating NY Times map of the bailout vote shows, antipathy to the deal cut across traditional regional divisions, tying the blue northeast to the reddest parts of the midwest. In areas geographically and socially distant from Wall Street, like the rust belts of western New York State and Pennsylvania and the depressed sweep of the Appalachians, both Republicans and Democrats chose to vote against the deal. The bailout predictably found its clearest support in New York City - so closely yoked to the financial industry - all of whose representatives (with one exception) voted "yea".