Let's say you worked your whole life, or at least a few months, campaigning and fundraising to get yourself elected to one of those enormous Neoclassical buildings in Washington D.C., where you pass bills and have lunch with lobbyists. As it so happens, if you are one of these people — senators, we think they're called, or congress-persons — you also find yourself in one of two positions: Favoring or hating the economic bailout package. For those of you senators, you've already made your choice: You finally "put partisan politics aside" and voted for the thing yesterday. Now it's up to the House to get this thing done and on President Bush's desk. This was after a dubious bout of wrangling on Monday that left the bill, and supposedly, the economy, in peril. But what if things never had to be like this? What if those who wanted the bailout package to pass had done things a little bit differently and, rather than having to rally support from their political colleagues, they had simply done a better job selling the idea? Some argue it was possible. And part of that solution included, for starters, not calling the thing a "bailout" in the fist place.

While we sort of assumed elected legislators passed bills that benefited them, rather than the voters who put them in office, apparently the $700 billion bailout package was so important our officials needed to check with their "constituents." At least that was the excuse they often bandied about for not voting for the bill. But, as AdAge's survey of public relations professionals reveals, they didn't do a very good job of that.

"They not only didn't use the right language, they didn't explain to the public what this was all about," said [John Marino, managing partner at Dan Klores Communications], who has a background in politics and spent some time working on Wall Street. "They should have said, 'This is a problem for all Americans and potentially the most devastating crisis we have faced since the Depression, and let me explain why.' Or, 'This is going to impact you, and it's logical that at some point it will impact you.' Banks were going to stop lending to small businesses and consumers, and they never talked about it in those terms. It was laid out as a Wall Street bailout."

Then there's the matter of branding:

Andrew Benett, CEO of Euro RSCG New York, wrote in a column released this week that this was a catastrophic failure of branding. Mr. Benett describes the current state of affairs as a highly complicated situation that no one has taken the time to explain or simplify for the American people. And like Mr. Marino he thinks the proper wording would have made a big difference.

"'Bailout' connotes failure, and Americans hate failure," Mr. Benett said. "There is nothing redemptive about a bailout. What if this had been called a 'rescue' from the beginning? Or the 'Save Our Homes Act'? Supporting a 'rescue' is a bear of an entirely different species. It is not only a redemptive act, restoring things to their rightful order — it is heroic."

And getting Americans to buy into the thing:

While complimenting Mr. Paulson on his sense of urgency, Nick Ragone, senior VP-director of client development at Omnicom's Ketchum, believes the Treasury secretary, who has been interviewed and featured in nearly every media outlet over the past two weeks, could have been more effective in selling the plan's benefits for Main Street.

"Clearly he did a good job on highlighting the impact that not taking action would have on the financial markets," Mr. Ragone said. "He could have done a much better job at explaining how this was going to impact small-business owners, people with student loans and auto loans. He didn't do a good enough job of selling it that way, and that was the biggest shortcoming of it."

Of course, now that a handful of Wall Street firms are tumbling while others are snapped up for pennies, and politicians wait to see whether they cast the right vote (as the coming weeks will tell), these PR maestros are the ones who actually stand to benefit from all the missteps. Crisis management is good business.