Ezra Klein: What's Chris Dodd's Game?

[flpoljunkie]

What's Chris Dodd's game?

Earlier in the week, Chris Dodd annoyed some financial reformers by bemoaning the Volcker reforms as destabilizing to the delicate bipartisan consensus he was trying to work out with Sen. Richard Shelby. But by yesterday, Dodd was singing a more populist tune and blaming the political difficulties on the banks, not the new ideas. "The refusal of large financial firms to work constructively with Congress on this effort borders on insulting to the American people, who have lost so much in this crisis,” Dodd said, assailing the "army of lobbyists whose only mission is to kill the common-sense financial reforms the public demands.”

The question about financial reform continues to be whether Democrats water it down to nothing to pass it with the help of a GOP minority that has begun raking in huge contributions from the banks and which has no interest in handing the Democrats a major victory against Wall Street or whether they accept the structural politics of the issue and use it as a political wedge in the hope that they can build pressure which will force Republican support. Early in the week, Dodd still looked caught on the first strategy. Yesterday, he was sounding more on board with the second.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/02/whats_chris_dodds_game.html

[Jennicut]

1. The game of corrupt CT politics. Few realize that we have had a Gov and many mayors go to jail here.

One, we are close to NYC. Two, we have tons of insurance companies in Hartford and elsewhere. A rich state, full of fat cats.