McCain said late this afternoon that it's time for Congress to get back to work, and not time to point fingers. Of course, he and his campaign immediately preceded this by getting in a couple jabs at Obama and the Democratic leadership.

"Senator Obama and his allies in Congress infused unnecessary partisanship into the process. Now is not the time to fix the blame. It's time to fix the problem," McCain said from Des Moines, Iowa at around 5:15 p.m. Eastern.

Earlier in the afternoon, McCain economic adviser Doug Holtz-Eakin released a statement with even more knocks against the Democrats. He said Obama and Democratic leaders Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi "put at risk the homes, livelihoods and savings of millions of American families" and that Obama "phoned it in." He then stated bluntly: "This bill failed because Barack Obama and the Democrats put politics ahead of country."

On a conference call with reporters held just after McCain's speech in Iowa, Holtz-Eakin took a much more nonpartisan tone. He went the entire call, by this reporter's count, without mentioning Obama once and largely talked up McCain's efforts over the last few days, saying the Republican nominee made "dozens of calls" to congressional leaders and those who were expected to vote against the bill.

He did blame Democrats for partisan attacks, but also noted that Republicans "chose to fold their cards" instead of "rising above the attacks."

"This is not a credit to either side," Holtz-Eakin said. "This is not the outcome that John McCain wanted."