Originally Posted by cnn.com

The voters said no
The reality is that conservative House members were less interested in the ear-ache they got from Pelosi than the earful they've been getting from constituents.

Calls to Congressional offices have been running overwhelmingly against the rescue - just five weeks before constituents go to the polls to vote on their members. In the week since Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke rushed to Capitol Hill urging Congress to ward off a financial collapse by passing a bailout within 48 hours, they've argued that the situation is urgent and that financial markets are in crisis.

But the dire warnings didn't provide enough political cover for lawmakers facing voter wrath. They may have even backfired in some cases, stirring suspicion that the White House and Treasury were over-blowing the magnitude of the crisis to shove through unprecedented intervention in the financial markets that would benefit Wall Street's fat cats.