The Nation – …In the trenches the legislative battle was Democrats against Democrats (Republican senators were united in opposing everything). These roll calls made visible the deeply conflicted purposes of the party—the awkward straddle Democrats have maintained for three decades. Is it the party of working people or the party of big money? Democrats have for some time wanted to be both, but this year's action exposed the contradiction more starkly and put the two sides into repeated collision.

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Senator Sherrod Brown's amendment followed the same pattern but on a far more fundamental issue—forcing the largest, most dominant banks to get smaller, breaking up concentrated financial power. Brown won among Democrats—thirty yes, twenty-seven no—though not enough to overcome Republican naysayers. Still, the Ohio senator came away remarkably optimistic about eventually winning.

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