Clinton battles image of being soft on Wall St.
John Wittneben simmered as he listened to Hillary Rodham Clinton defend her ties to Wall Street during last weekend’s Democratic debate. He lost 40 percent of his savings in individual retirement accounts during the Great Recession, while Clinton has received millions of dollars from the kinds of executives he believes should be in jail.
“People knew what they were doing back then, because of greed, and it caused me harm,” said Wittneben, the Democratic chairman in Emmet County, Iowa. “We were raised a certain way here. Fairness is a big deal.”
The next day, he endorsed Sen. Bernie Sanders in the presidential race.
Clinton’s windfalls from Wall Street banks and other financial services firms — $3 million in paid speeches and $17 million in campaign contributions over the years — have be- come a major vulnerability in states with early nomination contests. Some party officials who remain undecided in the 2016 presidential race see her as overly cozy with big banks and other special interests. At a time when liberals are ascendant in the party, many Democrats believe her merely having “represented Wall Street as a senator from New York,” as Clinton reminded viewers in an October debate, is bad enough.
It is an image problem she cannot seem to shake.
Though she criticizes the U.S. economy as being “rigged” for the rich, Clinton has lost some support recently from party members who think she would go easy on Wall Street excess if elected. Even as she promises greater regulation of hedge funds and private equity firms, liberals deride her for refusing to support reinstatement of the Glass-Steagall Act, a law that separated commercial and investment banks until its repeal under President Bill Clinton. And for many Democrats, her strong support from wealthy donors and a bigmoney “super PAC” undercuts her increasingly progressive rhetoric on free trade and other economic issues.
Her advisers say most Democrats like her economic policies and believe she would fight for middle-class and lowincome Americans. Most opinion polls put Clinton well ahead of Sanders nationally and in Iowa, and they are running even in New Hampshire, but she fares worse than him on questions about taking on Wall Street and special interests. And even if Clinton sews up the nomination, subdued enthusiasm among the party’s base could complicate efforts to energize turnout for the general election.
In the primaries, Clinton’s advisers privately concede she will lose some votes over her Wall Street connections. They declined to share specific findings from internal polls but predicted the issue could resonate in Iowa, Nevada, Ohio and Michigan, where many have lost homes and businesses to bank foreclosures.