Are we going to have a strong financial reform law?

[Lakai]

If there is no public backlash on the Republicans from blocking this bill then we are screwed as a country.

The politics of this issue are much different than for health care reform. Looks like Reid will keep bringing cloture motions to the floor and forcing the Republicans to vote. I don’t want to see the Democrats back down on this. They have the polls on their side.

[Chronos]

It distills down to campaign finance reform. We need public funding. As long as campaigns cost 700 million to run, the candidates will have to come to the rich to fund them. They don’t give their money away without strings. It disenfranchises the poor and middle class. We have no access or input.

Funny, Obama managed to avoid that. Most of his money came in a whole lot of small contributions from middle-class donors.

[Mosier]

@Lakai

If there is no public backlash on the Republicans from blocking this bill then we are screwed as a country.

The politics of this issue are much different than for health care reform. Looks like Reid will keep bringing cloture motions to the floor and forcing the Republicans to vote. I don’t want to see the Democrats back down on this. They have the polls on their side.

Say what? Isn’t this the senate with the lowest approval rating in history?

[ElvisL1ves]

What.

A new ABC News/Washington Post poll shows 65 percent of those surveyed want stricter financial reform. 31 percent are opposed.

The poll also shows majorities back two key parts of the senate bill… including greater government oversight of consumer loans… and a fund - paid for by the banks - that would help dismantle failing institutions. According to this poll, the public is split on letting the government regulate complex financial instruments knows as derivatives.

Also - by a double-digit margin, Americans trust Pres. Obama more than the Republicans in Congress to handle financial reform.

[Lakai]

It appears as if the Washington kabuki dance is waning down:

The Republicans, who were gathering to make their formal decision, appeared to back down after Democrats threatened to keep the Senate in session through the night to dramatize the standoff.

Heading into the Republican conference meeting, Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, said that with negotiations completed, it was time to move forward even though many disagreements remained.

“I am going to vote to proceed to the bill,” Ms. Collins said.

[Cisco]

Susan Collins is cool.

[Simplicio]

A pretty weird play by the GOP. Collins and Voynivitch were already hinting from the beginning that they wouldn’t support a filibuster indefinitely, so no one really thought they were going to be able to block it. Delaying it for a few days just makes them look both against a popular reform, and ultimately ineffective.

If Harry Reid had some sort of wish list regarding how this thing would play out, I doubt it would be very far from what actually happened. He had the GOP resisting a popular reform bill for few days, let them stretch it out so it was in the headlines for more then just one news-cycle, then still got the bill through to the next stage and got a chance to appear tough for once.