Sunday shows: Reg reform and 2010

Financial regulatory reform and the 2010 midterm elections will dominate this Sunday’s talk shows.

The
interviews will cap off a week of intense debate over Senate Banking
Committee Chairman Chris Dodd’s (D-Conn.) proposed overhaul of the
nation’s financial system — a series of fights at times dominated by
aggressive politicking typical to any midterm election year.

{mosads}A handful of Senate Republicans have recently carped that Dodd’s
bill lacks a bipartisan foundation, while other Republicans have already
signaled they intend to block the bill’s appearance from the chamber
floor. Dodd, however, has repeatedly blasted Republicans for the recent
obstruction, noting he has worked extensively with committee Ranking
Member Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) and Sen. John Corker (R-Tenn.), among
others, to ensure his legislation has broad appeal.

That
brewing disagreement will be most evident this weekend on CNN’s “State
of the Union,” which will host Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell
(Ky.) and Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.).

McConnell earlier in the week hammered Dodd’s bill for its proposed
“resolution authority,” which he said “not only allows” taxpayer
bailouts of troubled financial firms, but “institutionalizes” those
federal rescue efforts.

Warner, however, as one of the bill’s original authors, slammed
McConnell for that characterization a day later, telling The Washington
Post that the GOP leader “either doesn’t understand or chooses not to
understand” the bill. The senator’s harsh rebuke echoed the thrashing
Dodd gave McConnell during a speech on the Senate floor this Thursday.

The White House will later offer its own view in that ongoing
debate, when Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner joins NBC’s “Meet the
Press.” The Obama administration has worked closely with Dodd and other
Democrats to shepherd the financial regulatory reform bill and ensure
its prompt passage, and it will likely play a larger role once the bill
reaches the Senate floor.

Also on NBC, Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell (D) and Tennessee Rep. Marsha
Blackburn (R-Tenn.) will square off with top political pundits over the
nature of Democrats’ financial regulatory reforms, assessing what the
legislative trench fight means ahead of the 2010 elections.
The group will also discuss President
Barack Obama’s work during this week’s Nuclear Security Summit, which
the White House has since described as a key victory in its nuclear
non-proliferation efforts.

Meanwhile,
Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) will join CBS’s “Face the Nation” for his
first Sunday show appearance since beating Democrat Attorney General
Martha Coakley earlier this year.

Brown has long touted his own campaign in the Massachusetts special
election as evidence that Republicans could out-perform Democrats in
2010. He is likely to repeat those predictions during his interview on
Sunday, noting the similarities between the GOP’s takeover of the House
in 1994 with the political landscape in 2010.

But perhaps the true authority on the 1994 shakedown, former
President Bill Clinton, will address the Democratic Party’s chances in
2010 on ABC’s “This Week.”

The former president will also touch
upon his relief work in Haiti, months after a devastating earthquake
rocked the Caribbean’s poorest state and produced an immense
humanitarian crisis.

“Fox News Sunday” this weekend will host Sen. John McCain
(R-Ariz.), who will discuss his staunch opposition to the value-added
tax (VAT). The senator is so opposed to the proposed tax system that he
even offered a “sense of the Senate” resolution this week that
condemned the VAT, which some lawmakers have explored as an alternative
to the federal income tax.

Appearing after McCain will be Gen. Ray Odierno to offer a progress report on U.S. efforts in Iraq.

Iraq’s
parliamentary elections in March have triggered an aggressive few weeks
of politicking, as Sunni and Shiite politicians are still trying to
cobble together enough votes to establish themselves as a parliamentary
majority and elect a new prime minister. However, the early
negotiations have grown so intense that some of Iraq’s neighbors fear
the country is growing unstable, calling into question what may happen
once the majority of U.S. troops depart Iraq in the coming months.