January 18, 2010 08:05 PM UTC

Happy New Year...Really!

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• by: JO

Update at the end

Sure, we use Atomic Clock to synchronize our watches … but not our calendars! So, let the MLK Holiday mark the new year. To wit:

2010: The Year of Financial Reform.

2009 was the year of Health Care Reform, such as it may turn out to be. The way the issue was handled by the White House in particular — “Gotta get Snowe on board to at least claim bi-partisan support!” — left Harry Reid trying damn near anything to get Ben Nelson to stop roaming, and in the process disgusting lots of Democrats for whom the Era of Obama had started out as the Era of Reform and was starting to look a whole lot like something else.

Okay, New Year, New Issue: Banking Reform. By the time the mid-term election rolls ’round ten months from now, the outcome of the epic battle over financial reform will be just about where health care reform is now. And, depending on how people are feeling about the job market and  about their own financial security, that will be the last thought voters have before checking/clicking/pulling the lever for “U.S. Senate” in Colorado.

The compelling question for Democrats in this state is not how much money from bankers their candidate has/had collected by December 31, 2009. The compelling question for Democrats is whether their man (and it will be a man) can effectively carry a banner that will plug into popular discontent/disgust/disillusion with how the government is standing up to banking interests.

IF their candidate is notoriously wobbly on this subject, IF their candidate has generated quote after quote on “moderation,” “bipartisan support,” “unintended consequences” of reform (and by “reform” I mean Glass Steagall-era re-regulation, only more so), THEN their man will be left wondering how come all those Democrats went straight home from work on that Tuesday. What started with “no cram-down,” progressed to “smaller stimulus” (see Krugman in Monday’s Times, https://www.nytimes.com/2010/01… ), and went to “unintended consequences” and a call for “bipartisan” support, ended with … well, ended with “Dear Phil, Could I have my old job back?”

Meantime, of course, the Far Right is spinning its own tale: blame the Democrats. If the Democrats don’t have a counter-story, and a candidate to tell it, then Colorado could well turn right at Polling Place and barrel full speed ahead down the cul-de-sac.  

______________________

Later update, from WSJ:

Consumer Protection Agency in Doubt

Dodd Weighs Dropping Idea of Creating Independent Body in Bid to Get Financial Regulatory Revamp Passed This Year https://online.wsj.com/article/…

Dodd: on his way out.

Coakley: in deep trouble, evidently.

Proffered Solution: Repeat health care: gut reform in effort to attract Republicans/right-wing Democrats.

This is how to save the Obama administration? Possibly not.