Elizabeth Warren has probably been doodling “Vice President Elizabeth Warren” on the back of her Congressional notebooks lately, but that doesn’t mean she’s a shoo-in for Hillary Clinton’s Veep slot.
Even as the Massachusetts progressive cuddles up to the Clinton campaign, Hillary may face a choice between Warren, who despite being worth $8.5 million is considered a leader in the fight against “the 1%,” and Wall Street bankers, who have proven themselves a lucrative fundraising demographic for Clinton’s presidential campaign.
According to POLITICO, sources close to the Clinton campaign are warning the candidate that if she selects the “all-female ticket,” a popular notion among aging feminists and Bernie Sanders supporters, she risks alienating investment bankers and Wall Street financiers, who oppose some of Warren’s core ideas, like “breaking up” big banks and nationalizing parts of the lending market.
Clinton is, of course, a good friend to Warren’s sworn enemies in Manhattan’s financial district. Clinton earned close to a quarter-million dollars per speech for several speeches to Wall Street banks, including Goldman Sachs, one of Warren’s favorite bogeymen.
Citigroup and Goldman Sachs consistently rank among Clinton’s top 10 givers, with JP Morgan Chase and Morgan Stanley often not far behind. According to the Wall Street Journal, Clinton has raised $4.2 million in total from Wall Street, and around $350,000 in March alone. If you take the financial-services industry as a whole, she’s raised almost $30 million.
And because of Donald Trump’s tax plan, which includes taxing certain long-term financial investments, some Wall Street donors even switched to Clinton when their favored Republican dropped out of the race. Clinton is now taking in over half of all Wall Street-affiliated donations.
That’s a lot to lose in return for choosing Warren, a fellow New Englander, hard-line progressive and divisive figure, as Vice President. Warren is one of Trump’s favorite targets, particularly for her record as a Harvard “diversity hire” for her mostly non-existent Native American bloodline. And, it’s not likely Warren will win back that many of Bernie’s hardcore supporters.
She doesn’t need Warren, but she does need that sweet, sweet Wall Street cash.
