Subject: From Atlantic on Lincoln
From: "Eric Schwerin" <[email-masked]>
To: "Hunter Biden" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 8 Jun 2010 23:47:41 -0400

Why even bother to look at polls anymore? They all had Blanche Lincoln  
losing to Bill Halter...and now she's won. Whew! I'll leave it to  
others to analyze the winners (Bill Clinton, DSCC, 11th-hour  
discoveries of hidden reformist tendencies) and the losers (labor,  
pollsters, netroots). But having spent most of the day at a conference  
on financial reform, I do want to weigh in on that one.

Seems to me that one big winner tonight are proponents of tougher  
financial regulations, especially fans of Lincoln's provision forcing  
banks to spin off their derivatives business. The assumption until a  
few minutes ago was that Lincoln would lose and her provision would  
quietly get stripped in the conference committee that's about to take  
place. Now that she's won--and won narrowly, and faces a very tough  
race in the fall--the calculus becomes a lot tougher. It doesn't seem  
like a stretch to conclude that Lincoln eeked out a win by convincing  
just enough voters that she was a Wall Street scourge. If her  
signature provision goes down in flames, she'll look toothless and  
weak, and almost certainly lose her seat. The bank lobby and the Obama  
administration (both oppose the Lincoln provision) may simply prove  
too strong and do the deed anyway. But their task got a whole lot  
harder. The markup conference will now get a lot more attention. That  
could be tough for Lincoln. But it will be especially tough for  
Democrats who wanted to kill her provision without suffering any  
political damage.

  Blanche Lincoln - Bill Clinton -Wall Street - Democratic Party -  
Lincoln LincolnshireEric D. Schwerin
[email-masked]

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