Get a load of the spin on this report on yesterday's primary:
Lincoln loses leverage on US financial reform bill
By Charles Abbott
WASHINGTON, May 19 (Reuters) - Senator Blanche Lincoln, a key voice for financial reform, was forced on Tuesday into a Democratic runoff election in Arkansas and lost leverage for her plan to force big banks to spin off swaps desks.
She was expected to be the vote-leader in the primary and possibly win the nomination outright. Instead, Lieutenant Governor Bill Halter ran neck-and-neck with her in a race colored by anti-Washington sentiment.
Her swap reform proposal would cost a handful of big U.S. banks billions of dollars in revenue. It is one of the final issues in a mammoth Wall Street reform bill pending in the Senate.
http://www.reuters.com/...
Oh, give me a break. Yeah, like Blanche Lincoln not winning her primary is really going to be bad for financial reform. Like she really cared so much about it in the first place, before she realized she was in a primary fight. What an absurd headline.
Of course, everyone knows the real purpose of Lincoln's bill was to try to molify Arkansas voters, who have been upset with her for fighting on behalf of her corporate backers against a popular health care reform, and for helping to kill a popular public option in that bill. Not to mention the workers who are upset with her opposition to the EFCA card check bill.
Here is how Lincoln's bank bill has previously been described in Politico (italics added for emphasis):
The Obama administration doesn’t love it. Senate Democrats aren’t wild about it, either. Even respected financial watchdogs like Paul Volcker oppose it.
But a controversial proposal by Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) that would force investment banks to spin off their derivatives businesses appears to enjoy a quirky protected status until Tuesday — primary election day in Arkansas, when Democrats decide if Lincoln can go for a third term.
Trying to shore up her left flank, Lincoln went further than the White House, the House and the Senate Banking Committee to crack down on derivatives, the complex financial instruments at the heart of the 2008 economic crisis.
And Lincoln’s in no mood to compromise just days before her May 18 primary. So Democratic leaders have held back from going too far to force changes in her bill and risk embarrassing Lincoln ahead of the vote, according to multiple Senate aides and industry officials familiar with the negotiations.
The upshot is that a major provision of the regulatory reform bill is in limbo, the consequence of a toxic election year for incumbents.
http://www.politico.com/...
And in an article from TPM so similar it's almost plagerism:
One of the most far-reaching pieces of the Senate's Wall Street reform bill has powerful enemies. The White House doesn't like it. FDIC chief Sheila Bair doesn't like it. Obama adviser Paul Volcker--the patron saint of financial reform--doesn't like it. And neither do a number of key Democrats, including Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd. All of them say that a controversial proposal to force financial firms to spin off their derivative-trading desks into separate entities goes too far.
But they may have gotten themselves stuck with it--at least for now. With their assent, the plan was authored by Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR), who designed it to guard her left flank against a somewhat formidable primary challenge, and has been boasting of it on populist grounds for weeks. And that according to Republican and Democratic Senate sources, has led Democrats to quietly agree to postpone any changes they decide to make to her proposal until after this Tuesday's election has passed, to avoid embarrassing her in front of voters.
"I got a pretty good idea that it won't be dealt with before Tuesday," Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) said last night, in response to a question from TPMDC.
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/...
So really, there's not so much wrong with the bill. Other than they never really meant it. They were just playing. Playing at being real Democrats. Just until the primary.
But, now that that hasn't worked out as planned, and they have to find an excuse to get rid of it, they really can't find anything better than "blame the progressives"? Oh, maybe it would have passed, if you guys had voted for Lincoln! How lame is that?
I don't even know if I would agree with everything in Lincoln's bill, I think at least some forms of derivatives, like interest rate swaps, might be beneficial for banks if used in the right way, within reasonable limits, and with transparent reporting.
But these absurd attempts to portray every progressive political victory as somehow bad for the progressive agenda, they get old real quick. And it seems that this is the kind of spin I see more and more every election day. Complete denial of what is really happening out there. Who does Charles Abbott think he's fooling?