Last week, some Senate watchers were enamored of the idea that the politics of financial regulation don’t cleanly set up along right-left lines, and that we could see some bipartisanship on the final votes. Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) appeared to second that when he said last week that Sen. Chris Dodd’s (D-CT) proposal included the “seeds of compromise.”

However, even Corker declined to endorse Dodd’s bill so much as the process. You could find plenty of Republicans to claim they support health care reform in the abstract as well, but not the actual bill. And it seems more likely that this will be the perspective on financial reform, with a lot of talk about punishing the banks and letting struggling firms fail, but in the end, obstructionism will prevail. There’s a small minority of the conservative base, the Ron Paul set, arguing for things like auditing the Federal Reserve (which is actually in the Senate bill), but that does not equal regulatory reform.

There are plenty of other reasons why Republicans would be disinclined to work responsibly on this. The GOP obstructionism is a pure political play – meant to cripple Barack Obama politically. If there’s anyone they would not want to help, it’s Chris Dodd, who continues to struggle in early polls. In fact, Republicans are in a perfect position – they can position themselves on the side of “reform,” can point to critiques of the Dodd plan that says it doesn’t go far enough, encourage Ralph Nader to run in Connecticut to Dodd’s left, all the while exploiting official nervousness at the White House with other aspects of the Dodd plan. They can basically pick and choose, without having to articulate any strategy of their own.

It should be noted that consumer advocates generally support the Dodd bill, opposed by the US Chamber of Commerce. But conservatives aren’t really known for their consistency; they can attack the bill from the left, right and center without having to make their own argument.

Dodd is rallying support for his version of financial reform on his website. I wouldn’t expect that to be bipartisan.