Former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley bashed Democratic 2016 frontrunner Hillary Clinton for “shamefully” trying to “hide her cozy relationship with Wall Street big banks by invoking the attacks of 9/11.”
The diss came during ABC News Democratic debate Saturday, where the candidates were grilled on their relationship with corporate America. O’Malley was referring to comments made by Clinton during a November debate where she said Wall Street supported her because she helped rebuild lower Manhattan after the attacks on the Twin Towers.
At Saturday’s debate, Clinton was allowed to respond to O’Malley’s attack. She pointed to ads funded by “two hedge fund billionaires” running against her in Iowa and New Hampshire.
“Now, you’d have to ask yourself why are they running ads against me? And the answer is because they know I will go right after them, that I will not let their agenda be America’s agenda,” Clinton said, before suggesting debate viewers check out OpenSecrets.com to see that she had more donations from teachers and students than from Wall Street.
She also accused O’Malley of having “no trouble at all going to Wall Street to raise money to run campaigns for Democratic governors,” when he was head of the Democratic Governors Association.
She then turned her criticism to Sen. Bernie Sanders, who she called out implicitly for voting to undermine government’s ability to regulate the financial industry.
“So if we’re going to be talking like this, we can, and maybe we can score some political points. But the fact is every one of us stands for the kind of economy that will work better for every American,” Clinton said. “And if that means taking on Wall Street, I have a plan that is tough and comprehensive and praised by a lot of folks who say it goes further than what both Senator Sanders and Governor O’Malley are proposing.”
Weak tea from Hillary. Her Wall Street connections are her Achilles heel. She needs to confront it, but being a Clinton, she won’t.
And if that means taking on Wall Street, I have a plan that is tough and comprehensive:
‘hey, guys, cut it out’ …
Ridiculous. Of course she does. There’s about a zillion more teachers and students in the country than there are Wall Streeters. What a meaningless defense. And of course dodges the real question – how much money (not how many individual donations) she gets from special interest donors, and what they expect in return, which at a minimum is access and a friends in high places.
This is one area where Bernie has her dead to rights. But it probably doesn’t matter, because although campaign finance is important to Democratic voters, electability is more important to more of them. And while most Democrats may hate the current campaign finance system, a lot will agree with Hillary’s stance that with the Republicans guaranteed to raise huge sums for their candidate, the Democrats cannot unilaterally disarm.
So while he certainly has the moral high ground here, and his own small-donor fueled fundraising juggernaut continues to set records, a lot of Democrats are still going to look at the situation and say “who is going to have the money to match (or at least come close to) the Republican warchest.” And the answer is the candidate with the super-PACs and the Wall Street and corporate connnections, the bundlers and the big donors. No surprise there. The surprise is that Bernie is even competitive in the money game. given the very small amount of his totals that come from big donors. It gives me hope that even in the era of Citizens United, enough everyday people can still band together and mount a credible campaign without the candidate having to kowtow to big donors for the bulk of their funding.
It will be a weak point with Democrats, but won’t be much of a problem in the general election running against a Republican. She’s not a perfect candidate. I wish she were tougher on Wall Street too.
Nope. She said 3% of her contributions are from Wall Street, and she even referred everyone to OpenSecrets to do their own verifying.