As Politico reports, not all Democrats are enthusiastic about releasing the second half of the TARP funds with no strings attached:

Chris Dodd, chairman of the Senate banking committee, said he was pleased to get a “candid” letter from Obama economic envoy Larry Summers detailing new bank bailout oversight provisions and foreclosure mitigation — but it isn’t enough, he told NPR this morning.

Dodd said he expects the kill-TARP bill to be narrowly defeated in today’s anticipated vote but “more specifics need to be explained if you are going to secure the support to [authorize the second $350 billion bailout tranche]… there will be limited support for this if there isn’t clarity on the specifics.”

It might just be that they are reading the polls. And those indicate that voters have had it with unrestricted bailout infusions for unknown purposes. The Gallup poll shows:

A majority of Americans (62%) say Congress should block President-elect Obama’s request to release the remaining $350 billion in Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) funds until more details are provided about how the funds will be spent. The rest of Americans are split between saying the funds should be released immediately and saying they should not be released at all.

.   .   .

In general, the threat of blocking the release of the TARP funds appears to be one with which the average American is sympathetic. Given three choices of what to do with the remaining funds, 62% say Congress should block the release “unless more details are provided about how the funds will be used,” and another 12% say Congress should block the funds entirely. Only 20% favor Congress’ simply allowing the funds to be released.

The differences by political orientation in response to this question are not as large as one might expect or as large as is typical in such situations, particularly given that the survey question explicitly referred to Obama in connection with allowing the release of the funds.

Indeed more Democrats (65%) than Independents (59%) don’t want the funds released until more detail is provided about how they are to be used.

This is again one of those issues on which Republicans can take the popular and prudent position. As the Wall Street Journal editors write:

Mr. Obama has threatened to veto any Congressional vote of disapproval for TARP II, so Treasury will get its cash. But if the money is squandered on foreclosures and non-financial industries, the Obama Administration is setting itself up to need TARP III or TARP IV down the road. Asset values are going to continue to fall until they find a market bottom, and no declaration of Congress can make them stop in mid-descent. There are going to be more bank failures.

We supported TARP as a way to prevent a financial meltdown, providing public capital to help regulators manage problem banks, arrange mergers, and work off bad assets. TARP has since become a cash pool for all and sundry, casting a pall over the entire financial system. Mr. Obama would make more progress against recession if he steered the TARP back to the purpose that Paul Volcker and Eugene Ludwig first proposed on these pages — as a resolution agency on the model of the Resolution Trust Corp. of the 1990s. Working in tandem with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., such an outfit could close problem banks before they collapse, serve as a holding and work-out agency for bad assets, and then sell them back over time into private hands.

And the Democrats? If they don’t find the policy arguments compelling maybe the poll figures will get their attention. We’ll see how willing they are to go up against the new President on a course of action the public finds so distasteful.