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Democrats Shackled By Wall Street Ties

Buddying up to financial firms makes it harder to vilify them

By Kevin Spak,  Newser Staff

Posted Apr 21, 2010 12:42 PM CDT | Updated Apr 21, 2010 1:40 PM CDT

(Newser) – Democrats are enjoying having Wall Street as a villain as they push for financial reform, but there's one nagging problem: they've gotten pretty close to Wall Street in recent years. Thanks to some maneuvering from Chuck Schumer and Rahm Emanuel, many Democrats raised a lot of money from Wall Street donors in recent campaign cycles—including Barack Obama, who took in nearly $1 million from Goldman Sachs employees, Politico reports.

Democrats are hoping they can get the stink off by vigorously pursuing a reform package that Wall Street clearly despises, but they're not there yet. When Obama slammed Mitch McConnell for hobnobbing with Wall Street, John Cornyn shot back that the president had “demeaned himself and his office” by attacking McConnell for “doing what Rahm Emanuel did.” Emanuel, for his part, is still talking with Wall Street, trying to convince them that reform is necessary.

In this file photo made Monday, Jan. 4, 2010, an entrance to a Wall Street subway station is shown in New York.
In this file photo made Monday, Jan. 4, 2010, an entrance to a Wall Street subway station is shown in New York.   (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, file)
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COMMENTS
Showing 3 of 12 comments
KurtRambis4va
Apr 22, 2010 9:38 AM CDT
Wasn't Obama supposed to clean that up like he promised during campaigning? Also, he said he would have more transparency. Definately hasn't held up to those promises
Toon
Apr 21, 2010 8:40 PM CDT
The Democrats have two paths, they can let the money they have already received influence their votes or they can tighten regulations. What they can't do is give liberals some lame excuse for why they are not tightening regulations. Liberals will pick apart what's proposed and judge it by it's merits not by who proposed it.
Derni
Apr 21, 2010 7:59 PM CDT
So the Dems like the GOP..we see what the Dems are made of..are they like the GOP or will the establish regulations on derivatives??
now we see who they reaally are!
 

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