The Daily Strike-4/26/10-The Motion Fails

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FINANCIAL REGULATION: Senate Democrats failed to get the 60 votes necessary to even begin debate on financial regulatory reform. To the political credit of Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, every single Republican voted against debating bill, as did Democratic Senator, and Wall Street whipping boy, Ben Nelson of Nebraska. Majority Leader Reid voted no for procedural reasons, so that he can bring up the bill again when the time comes.

Republicans have won a short term victory. They think that by showing that Democrats don't have the votes to advance the bill without Republican support, the Democrats will be forced to make a series of concessions. There are a few problems with this thinking, and thus a few reasons that should give us hope. For one, Republicans haven't really articulated what they want out of the bill, just some vague desire to "start over." Soon, the public will have to see that they are obstructing this important bill for obstruction's sake. Unlike the health care bill, Wall Street regulation polls very well, so Republicans are clearly on the wrong side of public opinion. If Democrats can message this correctly, by saying that Republicans are using delay tactics to do Wall Street's bidding, they could make some major political hay out of this and still end up with a reasonably strong bill.

Negotiations will continue with Senators Dodd (D-CT) and Shelby (R-AL) to reach some sort of compromise. My preferred course of action at this point would be to forgo a major compromise, and instead politically intimidate one or two Republicans (like Snowe and Collins of Maine) to stop obstructing this bill. President Obama needs to do his part on this front. He released an appropriately blistering statement criticizing Republican obstruction and delay, but again, he needs to take this case to the American people.

I just found out that Majority Leader Reid will hold another vote to begin debate Wednesday. Stay tuned...

The House just dealt with suspension bills today, and the President's only public event was recognizing the New York Yankees at the White House, so we'll leave it there.