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For the deep-pocketed Hillary Clinton donors it was business as usual in Philadelphia as they came back from hiding after Bernie Sanders, her opponent during the primaries, conceded defeat after months of targeting Wall Street elites and their decades-long bond with the Clinton family.
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The rich donors were sipping cocktails at a special luxury suite overseeing the Democratic National Convention hall as they witnessed their longtime ally Clinton get nominated by delegates and secure the nomination for president.
During one cocktail party, one unnamed Wall Street Clinton donor told the New York Times that lobbyists and donors connected to large pharmaceutical and prison firms kept a low profile during the primaries due to the “hypersensitivity” created by Sanders over their connection with Clinton.
“I think we’re past that,” Wall Street investor Alan Patricof, a longtime friend and donor to the Clintons, told the New York Times when asked about donors keeping a low profile during the primaries. Earlier this year Patricof said in an interview that donors were “tripping over themselves” to give money to Clinton.
Meanwhile, Democratic party officials shamelessly bragged about how much money they were making off fundraisers as Clinton secured the nomination.
“This is a good place to be—for a lot of reasons,” former Florida Governor Charlie Crist, a Democrat now running for Congress, told the newspaper Tuesday as he sipped cocktails at the luxurious Ritz-Carlton hotel in downtown Philadelphia. “We must have set up five fundraisers today. This is the bank.”
This is even in contrast to the last two Democratic conventions when President Barack Obama was the nominee and to a small extent managed to stop his party “from raising money to pay for the conventions from lobbyists or political action funds,” according to The New York Times.
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“The Clinton people would always argue, ‘Well, there’s no connection between the money and the actions that we take,’” Jonathan Tasini, a Sanders delegate from New York, told the newspaper. “That’s what these cocktail parties and receptions are all about. It’s about access and whose phone calls get answered.”
And that is exactly what is happening as presidents and CEOs of major firms in Wall Street get the very acess they seek.
While Clinton’s donors flooded the city’s elite hotels, the big players were having a special party at the Ritz-Carlton. Philip D. Murphy, the former Goldman Sachs executive who is now the U.S. ambassador to Germany, and is now looking to become New Jersey's next governor, was at the party.
David Brock, who raised millions of dollars to help elect Clinton, joined Murphy for a drink. He has been described by Time magazine as “one of the most influential operatives in the Democratic Party.” Politico described him as a “former right-wing journalist-turned-pro-Clinton crusader.”
The list of those who are rushing to pour money into Clinton's campaign and make her win the election even include those who the former secretary of state singled out as bad seeds of Wall Street.
The giant Wall Street private equity firm Blackstone will hold an invitation-only reception before the final night of the DNC in Philadelphia.
However, according to The Intercept, the company was singled out by Clinton as a “shadow banker” firm that needed more regulation as part of her rhetoric about getting tough on Wall Street.
But the rhetoric is likely not to be followed by action as Blackstone’s President and Chief Operating Officer Hamilton E. James is “one of the leading Wall Street contenders for an economic policy post in a potential Clinton administration,” according to The New York Times.
“If the talk onstage at the Wells Fargo Center was about reducing inequality and breaking down barriers, Center City Philadelphia evoked the world as it still often is: a stratified society with privilege and access determined by wealth,” Nicholas Confessore and Amy Chozick said in their New York Times report after witnessing the elite mingle in Clinton’s honor.
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