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It took them a week or so, but Republicans in the Senate finally realized that locking arms with big banks and their lobbyists does a doozy on your public image. Ever since Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) made the disingenuous claim early last week that the current finance bill would create “endless taxpayer-funded bailouts,” and soon after reports emerged that McConnell and Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) had met with top hedge fund managers in New York to discuss reform with them, the GOP has looked like the party of Goldman Sachs at a time of boiling public anger at bankers and financiers.
Now, predictably, the GOP is backtracking. Yesterday, Sen. Judd Gregg (R-RI) told a Bloomberg radio station he hoped for a bipartisan solution on financial reform, and later on Tuesday, more top GOPers pared back the partisan fighting and extended their olive branches. “I’m convinced now there is a new element of seriousness attached to this, rather than just trying to score political points…I think that’s a good sign,” McConnell said, according to the Washington Post. Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), the ranking member on the banking committee and a leading voice on financial reform, said he believed the Senate was “going to get there” on financial reform, adding that “we’ve got a few days to negotiate, and the spirit is good.” Several other Republicans, like the Maine senatorial duo of Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, could ultimately lend a bipartisan imprimatur to a finance bill, too. (Though no one’s forgotten Snowe’s health care back-out, so I wouldn’t hold my breath.)
All of this is quite a reversal for the Republicans, who only last week drafted a letter outright opposing the finance bill. All 41 Senate Republicans signed the letter addressed to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (R-Nev.). But the reasoning behind their reversal is obvious: With the Goldman-SEC suit adding momentum to reform efforts (momentum that, some GOPers believe, might’ve been deliberately created), the GOP’s opposition made them look like Wall Street’s cronies. And with midterm elections to worry about, that’s an image every politician right now wants to avoid.
