Long road led to automakers’ bailout

The return trip was nothing like the first. Nardelli, Mulally and Wagoner road-tripped in separate fuel-efficient vehicles, making the 520-mile trip from Detroit along the highways of four states. Wagoner lunched at Quiznos and gassed up at a Pilot station.

The second round of hearings went better. Some lawmakers even sympathized publicly with the penitent auto chiefs for a public shaming that bailed-out banks never had to endure.

"I'm sure you all feel a little singled out," Rep. Spencer Bachus, R-Ala., told them. "There seems to be a glaring double standard."

A breakthrough came that Friday, when Pelosi broke with environmentalists and dropped her opposition to using the fuel-efficiency money for the bailout.

Aides to Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., the House Financial Services Committee chairman, and Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee chairman, spent the weekend hammering out details of a compromise. On Tuesday, they met in Pelosi's office with top White House officials — deputy chief of staff Joel Kaplan, economic adviser Keith Hennessey and top lobbyist Dan Meyer — who left sounding hopeful of a deal.

Within hours, the administration was briefing reporters on a late-night, hastily arranged conference call on the "conceptual agreement."

The package, which Pelosi called "tough love" for the companies, easily passed the House on Dec. 10. But it was dead on arrival in the Senate, where Republicans were in full revolt against Bush over it.

At a private lunch in the Capitol with Vice President Dick Cheney and White House chief of staff Josh Bolten, Republicans unloaded a barrage of criticism, calling the measure weak and unacceptable. The GOP had refused to take part in the negotiations that produced the compromise.

GOP senators lined up behind Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., who wanted to condition any auto aid on big concessions from labor and creditors.

There was one last chance to save the dying bill. Corker and Dodd convened an unprecedented meeting at the Capitol that included the automakers and the UAW. Their session, held in the stately Senate Foreign Relations Committee room, dragged on for hours, with staff aides eventually delivering pizza. Upstairs, just off the Senate floor, a holiday reception was in full swing, and it seemed like the auto bailout talks could drag until Christmas

When Corker emerged, it was to brief fellow Republicans on an emerging agreement. Players in both parties said they were on the brink of a deal, and Reid walked from his office to the Senate floor to announce, "We're ready to go."

But Republicans would not accept the proposal because the UAW had refused to commit to bringing wages and benefits in line with those of Japanese automakers by the end of next year. Reid quickly called a late-night vote, and the measure predictably failed.

"I dread looking at Wall Street tomorrow," a grim Reid said.

The administration picked up where Congress left off and spent days quietly cobbling together its plan. It finally came together on Thursday night even as the administration suggested that bankruptcy might be the only solution. But in the end, officials phoned auto executives to detail the terms for their long-awaited lifeline.

After six weeks of urgent pleas, it was pretty much take it or leave it at that point.

"Frankly," Wagoner said, "there wasn't a huge amount of negotiation."

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