Been saying this around here for quite some time; Eliot Spitzer gets it, too:

Imagine this: by next spring, an intellectual consensus will have emerged that the concentration in the banking sector that developed from the 1980s until the crash of ‘08 was misguided. Voices as disparate as Former Fed Chair Paul Volcker, Bank of England Governor Mervyn King, meta- investor George Soros, and the Wall Street Journal editorial page will be in agreement on this point.

A few brave souls on the Right — recognizing that the Republican Party has been bereft of ideas in its attacks on President Obama — will then try to re-define a populist, conservative attack by asserting that the White House has been captured by Wall Street. Real populism and change, they will argue, will come from the Republican, not the Democratic, party.

The power of such an attack from the Right should not be underestimated. There will be a huge first mover advantage that goes to the candidates who grab the real banner of attacking the structure of Wall Street as having been the root of the crash of ‘08. …

<snip>

So the simple question remains: why aren’t we focusing on the problem that got us here in the first instance — the scope, range, and size of the mega-institutions whose risk taking has so far inflicted only enormous harm on our economy? If the Republicans pick up this issue before we do, the elections of 2010 could be even worse than we are now fearing.

But can the right do this?

Again, it goes against their ideological grain. If the government were to break up capitalist institutions like big banks, that’s government meddling in the economy - isn’t it?

But Spitzer is right, this is what the public is waiting for; it’s a huge banner to be seized and waved about. Yet neither party seems interested in picking it up. Cultural populism only goes so far; marry it with legitimate economic populism and it would be a force that couldn’t be stopped.