Great call

[aleCcowaN]

I was just reading a column in today's newspaper: "La catastrófica claudicación de Obama", a translation of Paul Krugman's "The President Surrenders" in The New York Times, yesterday [here], and I found this paragraph:

"¿Tenía el presidente alguna alternativa esta vez? Sí. Para empezar, podría y debería haber pedido un aumento del techo de endeudamiento allá en diciembre pasado.

Cuando le preguntaron por qué no lo hizo, respondió que estaba seguro de que los republicanos actuarían con responsabilidad. Seguí participando."


(emphasis added)

The phrase in bold is what you usually get from a promotional campaign where each bottle or wrap may contain a prize, like "another free beer" or "you won the trip to the World's Cup with four of your friends", and most of the times "seguí participando", that is the verbal render of that dua-dua-dua tune you get when you miss, and that can be translated as "you got nothing but keep your money coming anyway, sucker".

That was strange enough for me to look for the original article. The original paragraph reads (emphasis added):

First of all, he could and should have demanded an increase in the debt ceiling back in December. When asked why he didn’t, he replied that he was sure that Republicans would act responsibly. Great call.

So, my questions are:

a) What does "great call" mean?
b) What does "great call" mean in the context of that article?
c) Was the translation good?
d) What is the English equivalent to "seguí participando" in that kind of campaigns with prizes? (It would be glad to get an answer like "we're too evolved to have such campaigns", but I'm afraid that wouldn't be the point)