THE DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION
MARK WILSON/GETTY IMAGES
ing the piece of Wall Street reform that dealt with derivatives.
She shocked K Street and the
Washington establishment when,
six weeks before her primary,
she released tough legislation
that tightly regulated the derivatives market. The move sapped
her progressive challenger, Lt.
Gov. Bill Halter, of momentum.
Lincoln beat back most efforts to
weaken her language.
The night of Lincoln’s victory
in June 2010, a senior White
House official got in touch with
POLITICO reporter Ben Smith
to snipe. “Organized labor just
flushed $10 million of their members’ money down the toilet on
a pointless exercise,” the official
said. “If even half that total had
been well-targeted and applied in
key House races across this country, that could have made a real
difference in November.”
Labor may have lost that specific
vote to oust Lincoln, but by taking
the fight outside, it won legislative language that strictly regulated trillions of dollars of financial
transactions. Considering the end
result, the price tag was cheap.
A LOSING
STRATEGY
Voters delivered a firm rebuke to
the president in the November
2010 midterm elections. Democrats lost control of the House of
Representatives, and the president’s health care law proved to
be a rallying point for Republican
voters. Obama’s top advisers concluded that they needed to demonstrate the appropriate humility.
HUFFINGTON 09.09.12
Senate Majority
Leader Harry
Reid (D-NV), and
Senate Banking
Committee
Chairman
Christopher Dodd
(D-CT), speak to
the media after the
Wall St. Reform
bill passed.