Wall Street Donors Withhold Money, Affection From Democrats

Maybe the Democrats are doing something right after all. According to the number crunchers at The Washington Post, donations from the New York area to the party’s congressional campaign committees are down 65 percent, with the drop largely attributed to Wall Street’s dissatisfaction with financial reform.

Donations from progressive donors are also down, reports one anonymous fundraiser, who says, “There’s a tremendous amount of disaffection with the administration” among the party’s base.

Donations are down 34 percent in San Francisco, another center of finance and progressivism, and the second-biggest fundraising region for the Democrats.

One would think that Wall Street types would be pleased with the watered-down financial reform bill, which is by all accounts pretty weak stuff given the enormity of the financial collapse. But greed does funny things to people. Take this passage from The Post’s report [emphasis added]:

Reasons for the plummeting donations include concern about the economic recovery and the personalities of the campaign committee leaders, Democratic experts say. But the overwhelming factor is the rising anger among financial executives who think they have not been treated well based on their support of Democrats over the past four years, according to lawmakers, party strategists and fundraisers. Several of the party’s biggest New York donors declined through spokesmen to be interviewed. Some Democrats say pushing Wall Street reform is more important than any slippage in political donations.

There’s just no pleasing some people. And for the Democrats, judging by their fundraising woes, there’s just no pleasing any people. — PZS