Wall Street was firmly behind Obama in 2008 — but this year, the employees of many big banks have thrown their support behind Romney.
Last week, The Wall Street Journal took a look at Goldman Sachs Group, the corporation that in 2008 was Obama’s biggest backer, with over one million dollars in donations from individual employees. Like most of Wall Street, this year Goldman Sachs employees are behind Romney — data from the Center for Responsive Politics shows they’ve given the Romney campaign $900,000, and given his super PAC an additional $900,000. In the forty years since Congress created the campaign finance system, no corporation has switched sides so dramatically in such a short period of time.
Goldman employees told the Journal that they were offended by the regulatory measures in the Volcker rule, which was designed without their input, and by the president’s “populist rhetoric.”
“Look at what he did — he attacked those guys and made it personal,” said Rick Hohlt, a financial-services lobbyist. “In the old days you give money because you want to have a seat at the table even if you get screwed. But they weren’t even offering a seat at the table.”
