Obama Endorsed by 3 former SEC Chairs

by Dave Keating | May 14, 2008 at 12:49 am

275 views | 0 Recommendations | 0 comments

Wow! A strong and unexpected group of endorsements, the most interesting one being from William Donaldson, who was SEC chair under President Bush I. It reflects the big lack of confidence Wall Street is showing in McCain, who has outlined little in the way of economic policy and has sometimes appeared to not have a firm understanding of what has caused the nation's current economic woes, even candidly admiting he knows nothing about economics.

Donaldson told the Wall Street Journal he was struck by a speechObama gave calling for a revamping of regulation for any businessthat borrows money from the government. He told the paper that Obama understands that the US,"need to take a good hard look at how things are organized" and "justexactly what went wrong in terms of the regulatory oversight that wehave."

Three former chairmen of the Securities and Exchange Commission will publicly endorse Democratic Sen. Barack Obama's bid for the presidency Wednesday, including one who served under President Bush.

William Donaldson, who was SEC chairman for about 2½ years from early 2003, along with Clinton and Reagan appointees Arthur Levitt and David Ruder, will join former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker in endorsing Sen. Obama, his campaign said. Mr. Volcker endorsed Sen. Obama in January.

In a statement released by the campaign, the four men said they believed Sen. Obama would take a "reasoned approach" to "balanced regulatory reform." As with rival presidential candidates Sens. John McCain and Hillary Clinton, Mr. Obama has advocated revamping financial regulations to head off a repeat of the current credit crisis. Unlike the other two, Sen. Obama has said he would consider raising the capital-gains tax rate from its current 15% -- a move that could have a profound effect on the financial industry.