“Look at what Goldman actually did wrong,” says a former Goldman executive. “Then you look at all the things JPMorgan has done wrong, and they are all the way back in the business pages. I say this without criticism and with admiration, but the way he [Dimon] has kept that bank’s reputation is amazing.”

Dimon, however, is a fierce defender of the status quo. “Customers will only do business with us if we’re better, faster, cheaper,” he says. “If not, they’ll go someplace else.” He frequently points out that, although JPMorgan Chase’s mortgage business lost money in 2008, the investment bank made money, and vice versa in 2009. “Take away our ability to be diversified and the result is a wobblier system,” he says.

Certainly, there are things only a big bank can do. Warren Buffett, who owns shares in JPMorgan, says that when Berkshire Hathaway bought the railroad Bur­lington Northern for $26 billion, in the fall of 2009, he called up Dimon on the Tuesday morning just prior to the public announcement of the deal and said, “Jamie, I need $8 billion!” “You got it,” Buffett says Dimon told him. “Even with some of the other big banks, that’s not something you could do on the phone,” Buffett adds.

But Dimon’s sanguinity is somewhat belied by the formidable lobbying machine that he’s built in Washington. JPMorgan’s shop is much bigger than that of other banks, and it is chock-full of politically connected former congressional staffers. The firm has become known for the regularity with which its top people show up in Washington.

Dimon has put himself front, center, and uncensored in the debate about tougher oversight. He’s lambasted regulators for failing to recognize that, while some companies were “too big to fail,” others were “ports in the storm,” and for making “hundreds of rules, many of which are uncoordinated and inconsistent with each other.”

Part of the explanation is purely pragmatic: Dimon is trying to preserve his firm’s profits—and maybe the firm itself. But it’s hard not to hear something more emotional when you listen to Dimon. “This country would be flying if we had gotten stuff right and all worked together, but we haven’t,” he says. He frequently says that banks and bankers are being “scapegoated” for their role in the crisis, and he is full of righteous indignation. He often invokes Abraham Lincoln: “I’m a Democrat, and I tell Democrats and Republicans, you guys are busy simplifying and scapegoating—well, Abe Lincoln wouldn’t do it.” He says he’s heard the story of a young officer telling Lincoln during the Civil War, “We’re going to win because God is on our side.” Lincoln responded, “Son, let’s hope that we’re on God’s side.”

For all of Dimon’s personal engagement, and for all the lobbying clout that JPMorgan has, the jury is still out on the bank’s success in stemming the tidal wave of new regulations. The current version of the Volcker Rule, aimed at preventing banks from making risky bets with depositors’ money, is watered down from what activists would like to see, but it isn’t what the industry wants, either, and the fight over the regulation of derivatives is ongoing.

Now JPMorgan, like the rest of the industry, is lurching to the right. Combined contributions from JPMorgan Chase PACs and employees are nearly four times as much for Mitt Romney as they are for Obama.

There’s a feeling in Washington that the banks, JPMorgan included, have squandered some of their credibility. “What they [regulators] say when the industry complains is, I don’t believe them,” says Karen Shaw Petrou, co-founder of Federal Financial Analytics, a research and advisory firm. “The industry has repeatedly said things like ‘This rule will doom credit to small businesses.’ That’s hurt their credibility and undermined their ability to get policymakers to pay attention to studies that prove that some rules may even have a perverse impact.” Such behavior shows Wall Street did not have its fingers on the nation’s pulse. “I think they underestimated the enormous negativity out there about them,” Daley says. “They were used to being at the top, to being so loved and so admired, investment bankers with their houses in the Hamptons, wow, they make so much money, so they must be so smart—they are geniuses. They underestimated the depths of the anger … [and] the problem they had created for the political system.”