Back in November, Hillary Clinton responded to criticisms of her Wall Street ties by pointing out that, as a senator from New York who had represented the state before and during 9/11, she was obligated to represent their interests. It was perhaps the most curious notion adduced in the Democratic race up to that point, and the oddity of Clinton’s reasoning did not escape notice. It was the kind of bizarre statement that critics like to linger on, and repurpose for useful attacks. But for Clinton it has turned out to be worse than ammunition, not for what it was but for what it wasn’t: In the end, it simply wasn’t a satisfactory answer. It did not decrease interest in her relationship with Wall Street, or mollify voters concerned about her ability and willingness to handle big banks and the financial industry.

In the first hour of Thursday night’s Democratic debate in New Hampshire, two questions targeted Clinton’s history with banks. MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow pointed out that the “most frequent area of concern” reporters hear from voters leaning toward Sanders is whether Clinton has been “too close to Wall Street.” Maddow asked Clinton if she has been too dismissive of voters’ concerns in that regard, including the $675,000 that Goldman Sachs paid her in speaking fees. A little while later, co-moderator Chuck Todd read a question from a voter who wanted to know if Clinton would release the transcripts of her speeches to Goldman. Todd observed that transcription services had been used at those speeches, meaning that transcripts likely do exist.

Clinton, for perhaps the first time in the debate, faltered.

“I will look into it,” she said. “I don’t know the status, but I will look into it... But, I can only repeat what is the fact, that I spoke to a lot of different groups with a lot of different constituents, a lot of different kinds of members about issues that had to do with world affairs...”



It was a marked departure from her former efforts to explain the speaking fees. Gone were the shadows of the twin towers, the uniqueness of her relationship to an important New York industry. Instead Wall Street had become, in Clinton’s parlance, “just one street,” just one industry among many, one problem among many, one stop on the speaking circuit among very many.