The Republicans’ biggest advantage over the Democrats is money. Not because they have more of it, although they usually do. No, it’s because their base is almost completely aligned with their corporate and wealthy big-money donors, while the Democratic base is the complete opposite.

Regulators have competing goals, or at least goals that distract from one another. They want to ensure price transparency for every trade, and exchanges or clearinghouses as the mechanism. But they also should want to increase the swap participants, so that the market doesn’t get concentrated, adding to risk.

This could end well, or with literally no meaningful changes at all. Banks are placing a lot of money to ensure the latter.

Multiple outlets, but led by Jane Kleeb at Bold Nebraska, have confirmed that Ben Nelson will support the financial reform bill. It’s unclear what Nelson got in exchange for his support, but that was a pretty quick turnaround. Maybe Harry Reid told him that his objection to no Senate input on the head of the new consumer protection bureau was totally ridiculous, because the position is subject to Senate confirmation. Perhaps Nelson just said, “Oh,” and moved on.

Yesterday’s results in the election showed what has now become conventional wisdom: an “anti-incumbent mood,” something the media will parrot from now to November. They can find the reason by looking no further than what they ignored during election coverage – last night’s debacle in the Senate on financial regulation reform.

The Democrats were meant to get the message loud and clear, and they did. The financial reform bill is quite toothless and it appears to have codified many of the things Goldman Sachs wanted, including making the bailouts permanent, so it’s win-win for them.