I’ve written plenty about the potential derivatives loophole in the Senate Wall Street reform bill, which Maria Cantwell felt concerned enough about that she tried to block a cloture vote on the entire legislation (although she did give consent to waiving the Budget Act at the last minute, which also could have held up the bill). However, Cantwell’s name was not on the derivatives legislation that concerned her so. And her amendment had a co-sponsor who did not join Cantwell in protesting the vote until the concerns were met.

Maneuvers late in the day resulted in the Senate passing a financial regulation bill.

Scott Brown changed his cloture vote from “No” on Wednesday to “Yes” on Thursday. What was he offered in return?

Michael Greenberger, a professor at the University of Maryland School of Law and the former Director of the Division of Trading and Markets at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission under Brooksley Born is as knowledgeable about derivatives and their import as anyone involved in this debate. Greenberger believes that Sen. Maria Cantwell did the right thing in holding up cloture on the bill in order to tighten the language around trading and clearinghouses.

After a few more amendments to the Wall Street reform bill this evening (and a defeat for the Whitehouse amendment to allow states to cap interest rates on credit cards), Harry Reid set up a vote for cloture for today. He expects Arlen Specter to be on hand, and to vote for cloture, so that brings him within one vote of getting to 60. But Russ Feingold and Maria Cantwell, the two Democrats who voted against invoking cloture, are digging in. They want changes to the bill that would strengthen it, particularly around derivatives. Will this day devolve again into “Lord of the Flies” on the Senate floor?

Senators Feingold and Cantwell explain their votes against cloture on the Wall Street reform bill in the Senate.

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 headline story in the Washington Post today states that Republicans, worried about being seen as too close to the big banks, especially in the wake of the Goldman Sachs scandal, are returning to the bargaining table and supportive of a bipartisan deal. This was how Democrats hoped this would turn out, that they could play a game of chicken and win, and that appears to be the case right now.

However, there’s nothing specific about any deal being discussed, just the notion that there is one in the works.

Now we’re having a partisan fight, not a fight about the merits of the bill, and on that score, Democrats do appear to be winning.

Last night, Harry Reid announced that there would be tentative deal (or deals) on the public option. The deal has not been scored by the CBO and, in fact, the deal may only be a deal on what ideas they will have the CBO score, so that they then can than use that information to make the actual deal. Nor does it sound like the deal included the whole Democratic caucus, so this deal might not even have the 60 votes needed, thereby making it not really a “deal” at all.