Delamaide: Wall Street is in Hillary Clinton's corner

Darrell Delamaide | Special for USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — Behind the scenes, Hillary Clinton's campaign for president belies the Wall Street reform rhetoric that she uses to appeal to left-wing Democratic voters.

It was Deep Throat's reputed advice to reporters in the Watergate scandal that made "follow the money" the iconic slogan for those seeking to ferret out corruption in U.S. politics.

But the political slush fund in Nixon's 1972 re-election campaign seems quaint in the wake of Citizens United, super PACs and the even darker pools of campaign funds that are the forms of corporate payoffs to politicians nowadays.

Much of the money is impossible to follow as dubious non-profit organizations mask the identity of their donors and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce fights efforts to make companies disclose their political contributions.

However, we can still see the tip of the iceberg through the tatters of campaign finance law that remain. And what that tip tells us is that Wall Street is still squarely behind Clinton.

Moreover, the drip feed of policy prescriptions that Clinton has embarked on (there's more to come "over the course of this campaign," she says) obscures the fact that there's not really that much reform there.

Her proposals for reforming capital gains tax by scaling up the amount of time it takes to get truly favorable rates, for instance, met mixed reviews. Some critics say it won't accomplish her stated goal of getting companies to look beyond quarterly profits.

In any case, it's small potatoes compared to forthright calls by her rivals for the Democratic nomination, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and former Maryland governor Martin O'Malley, to break up the banks and impose more drastic restrictions on bank activity.

In fact, Clinton has rejected the idea of reintroducing a Glass-Steagall Act to separate commercial banks from investment banking, saying the issue is "more complicated" than that — echoing excuses by the Obama administration for not following through on more aggressive financial reform.

One of the things making it "complicated" might be the unstinting support Clinton is getting from Wall Street.

An analysis of the most recent federal campaign contribution data by the Huffington Post found Clinton in the lead in donations from Wall Street with $432,610 from bank executives, employees and their spouses.

Republican hopefuls Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio trailed with $353,150 and $105,669, respectively.

Again, this is the tip of the iceberg, because it doesn't include funds flowing into many super PACs and the very dark 501(c)(4) organizations like Americans for Prosperity that ostensibly promote social welfare but are shams for political advocacy.

This is on top, in Clinton's case, of the millions she and her husband, the former president, collected in "speaking fees" in the months prior to the official declaration of her candidacy, including from Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and other Wall Street firms.

These ties are well known, but the fact that this support continues in the face of Clinton's leftish rhetoric tells us Wall Street is not too worried about anything Clinton may do if she were to win the election.

This susceptibility to influence by mega-donors is not confined to Wall Street or financial services.

In a report this week on Clinton's ambitious plans for increasing renewable energy, The New York Times quoted her own press secretary as noting that these goals met the bar to win her donations from hedge fund billionaire and environmentalist Tom Steyer. (The report also noted her plans would require new legislation that would be difficult to pass.)

As important as the money trail is, there are other indications behind the scenes that Clinton does not envisage any radical changes — or even any significant restrictions — on Wall Street.

Her top advisers include two former investment bankers who have a history of being soft on financial regulation. Both held high positions in Clinton's State Department and would be obvious candidates for cabinet posts in a new Clinton administration.

Tom Nides, a veteran of Morgan Stanley and a former chairman of the main financial services lobbying group Sifma (Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association), was deputy secretary of state under Clinton.

Robert Hormats, a longtime vice chairman at Goldman Sachs and currently vice chair of Kissinger Associates, was an under secretary during Clinton's tenure at State.

It was President Bill Clinton, let us not forget, who brought Goldman Sachs co-chairman Robert Rubin and his coterie of Wall Streeters into his administration and championed the financial deregulation that led to the 2008 financial crisis.

Hillary Clinton may have many things to recommend her as a presidential candidate, but Wall Street reform is not one of them. Voters who think this country needs reform beyond what a hobbled Dodd-Frank act can deliver will have to look elsewhere.

Business columnist Darrell Delamaide has reported on business and economics from New York, Paris, Berlin and Washington for Dow Jones news service, Barron's, Institutional Investor and Bloomberg News service, among others.