Sanders attacks Clinton over Wall Street ties

NYT

Hillary Clinton campaigns at Simpson College in Indianola, Iowa on Thursday. Republican strategists are testing how to turn Ms. Clinton’s paid speeches against her in an election defined by rising economic inequality.

Vermont Senator argues his rival is too beholden to Wall Street to rein in industry’s excesses.

Hillary Clinton’s paid speeches at Wall Street are now emerging as the central line of attack in an increasingly bitter primary clash with Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont. In Sunday’s debate in South Carolina and at a series of campaign appearances in Iowa this week, Mr. Sanders has argued that Ms. Clinton is too personally beholden to Wall Street to effectively rein in the industry’s excesses.

The attacks have become one of Mr. Sanders’ biggest applause lines in Iowa, where the median household earns about $52,229 a year.

And Republican strategists are testing how to turn Ms. Clinton’s speaking fees against her in an election defined by rising economic inequality and stagnant middle-class wages.

Ms. Clinton has sought to parry Mr. Sanders by highlighting her support for tighter regulation and comparing herself to President Barack Obama, who took millions of dollars in campaign contributions from Wall Street but went on to enact some of the farthest-reaching financial regulations in decades.

Big vulnerability

But the new attacks strike at what even some allies believe may be one of Ms. Clinton’s biggest vulnerabilities: not her positions on financial regulation, but her personal relationships with Wall Street executives, along with the millions of dollars the candidate, her husband, and their family foundation have accepted in speaking fees or charitable contributions from banks, hedge funds and asset managers.

Unlike Ms. Clinton, Mr. Obama has never earned speaking fees from Wall Street. “The reason that Bernie is focusing on the speaking fees is that Hillary can’t use the Obama defense,” said Ed Rendell, a former Pennsylvania governor, who has supported Ms. Clinton.

Together, Ms. Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, have earned in excess of $125 million in speech income since leaving the White House.

Goldman Sachs alone paid Ms. Clinton $675,000 for three speeches in three different states.

In highlighting Ms. Clinton’s ties to Wall Street, Mr. Sanders is tapping into suspicion that remains potent in both parties years after the last Occupy Wall Street tents disappeared from Zuccotti Park in lower Manhattan.

— The New York Times News Service