Nancy Pelosi vs. Henry Paulson vs. Barney Frank vs. Ben Bernanke vs. Harry Reid vs. Mitch McConnell vs. John Boehner vs. Spencer Bachus et al.

Today, I investigated the major players in the negotiations leading to the proposed "mother of all bailouts" a.k.a. the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008. First, I faced off Treasury Secretary Paulson, Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke and the major Democratic leaders involved: House Speaker Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Reid and House Financial Services Committee Chair Frank.



I limited the graph to the year 2008. Pelosi was the most powerful: constantly-high Google-popularity. However, towards the end, the financial crisis pushed Frank and esp. Paulson to the forefront, overtaking her. In case there were any doubt, the House of Representatives weighed heavier than the Senate: just compare Pelosi and Reid. Let's have a look at what a face-off with the major Republican leaders (House Minority Leader Boehner, Senate Minority Leader McConnell, House Financial Services Committee Ranking Member Baucus) yielded:



Paulson and Bernanke dominated the Republicans, esp. at the end. Considering the results of the first face-off, the latter were pretty much bystanders, at least according to their Google-popularity... Why didn't I look into President Bush and the two major presidential candidates? There was that high-profile meeting after all? Actually, I did:



As you can see, they were the elephants in the (negotiating) room, esp. Obama and McCain. Anyway, now comes the hard part: getting majorities in the House and the Senate to sign off on the bailout...